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In x 1693 he became master of arts, and fellow of the college; and soon after set up for a tutor; when, such was his reputation for learning and good manners, that archbishop Tillotson sent him his nephew for a pupil. But his health did not permit him to go on in that way; and therefore, resigning his pupils to Mr. Laughton, he became chaplain (for he had taken orders) to Dr. Moore, bishop of Norwich. During the time of his being chaplain to bishop Moore, which was from 1694 to 1698, he published his first work, entitled “A new Theory of the Earth, from its original to the consummation of all things; wherein the Creation of the World in six days, the universal deluge, and the general conflagration, as laid down in the Holy Scriptures, are shewn to be perfectly agreeable to Reason and Philosophy,” 1696, 8vo. Whision relates, that this book was shewed in manuscript to Dr. Bent-ley, to sir Christopher Wren, and especially to sir Isaac Newton, on whose principles it depended and though Mr. John Keill soon after wrote against it, and demonstrated that it could not stand the test of mathematics and sound philosophy, yet it brought no small reputation to the author. Thus Locke, mentioning it in a letter to Mr. Molyneux, dated Feb. 22, 1696, says, “I have not -heard any one of my acquaintance speak of it but with great commendations, as I think it deserves 'and truly I think it is more to be admired, that he has laid dow(i an hypothesis, whereby he has explained so many wonderful and before inexplicable things in the great changes of this globe, than that some of them should not easily go down with some men; when the whole was entirely new to all. -,He is one of those sort of writers, that I always fancy should be most esteemed and encouraged: I am always for the builders, who bring some addition to our knowledge, or at least some nevr things to our thoughts.” This work of Whiston has gone through six editions; but no considerable additions, as he informs us, were made to it after the third.

In 1698, bishop Moore gave him the living of Lowestoft cum Kessingland, by the sea-side, in Suffolk; upon which he quitted his place of chaplain, and was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards the celebrated Dr.) Clarke, who was then about four-and-twenty years of age. He went to reside upon his living, and applied himself most earnestly and conscientiously to the duties of the station. He kept a curate, yet preached twice a Sunday himself; and, all the summer season at least, read a catechetic lecture at the chapel in the evening, chiefly for the instruction of the adult. He has recorded an instance or two, which shew how zealous he was for the promotion of piety and good manners. The parish-officers applied to him once for his hand to a licence, in order to set up a new alehouse; to whom he answered, “If they would bring him a paper to sign, for the pulling an alehouse down, he would certainly sign it; but would never sign one for setting an alehouse up.”

In the beginning of the last century he was called to be sir Isaac Newton’s deputy, and afterwards his successor in the Lucasian professorship of mathematics; when he resigned his living, and went to Cambridge. In 1702 he published “A short view of the Chronology of the Old Testament, and of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists,” in 4to; and in March 1702-3, “Tacquet’s Euclid, with select theorems of Archimedes, and practical corollaries,” in Latin, for the use of young students in the university. This edition of Euclid was reprinted at Cambridge in 1710; and afterwards in English at London, under his own inspection. He tells us that it was the accidental purchase of Tacquet’s own Euclid at an auction, which occasioned his first application to mathematical studies. In 1706 he published an “Essay on the Revelation of St. John;” in 1707, “Proslectiones astronomicae;” and sir Isaac Newton’s “Arithmetic* Universalis,” by the author’s permission. The same year, 1707, he preached eight sermons upon the accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies, at the lecture founded by the honourable Mr. Boyle; which he printed the year alter, with an appendix to the same purpose. About August, 1708, he drew up an “Essaly upon the Apostolical Constitutions,” and offered it to the vicechancellor, for his licence to be printed at Cambridge; but was refused it. He tells us that he had now read over the two first centuries of the church; and found that the Eusebian, or commonly called Arian, doctrine was, for the main, the doctrine of those ages; and, as he thought it a point of duty to communicate what he had thus discovered, so his heterodox notions upon the article of the Trinity were now very generally known.

In 1709 he published a volume of “Sermons and Essays oh several subjects;” one of which is to prove that our blessed Saviour had several brethren and sisters properly o called, that is, the children of his reputed father Joseph, and of his true mother, the Virgin Mary. Dr. Clarke, he says, wrote to him to suppress this piece, not on account of its being false, but that the common opinion might go undisturbed but, he adds, <: that such sort of motives were of no weight with him, compared with the discovery and propagation of truth. In 1710 he published “Praelectiones Physico-Mathematicae sive Pbilosophia clarissimi Newtoni Mathematica illustrata” which, together with the “Prajlectiones Astronomicae” before mentioned, were afterwards translated and published tn English; and it may be said, with no small honour to the memory of Mr. Whiston, that he was one of the first, if not the very first, who explained the Newtonian philosophy in a popular way, and so that the generality of readers might comprehend it with little difficulty. About this year, 1710, Menkenius, a very learned man in Germany, wrote to Dr. Hudson, the keeper of the Bodleian library at Oxford, for an account of Mr. Whiston; whose writings then made, as he said, a great noise in Germany. He had some time embraced the Arian heresy, and was forming projects to support and propagate it and, among other things, had translated the “Apostolical Constitutions” into English, which favoured that doctrine, and which he asserted to be genuine. His friends began to be alarmed for him; they represented to him the dangers he would bring upon himself and family, for he had been married many years, by proceeding in this design; but all they could say availed nothing: and the consequence was, that, Oct. 30, 1710, he was deprived of his professorship, and expelled the university of Cambridge, after having been formally convened and interrogated for some days before.

At the end of the same year he published his “Historical Preface;” setting forth the several pteps and reasons of his departing from the commonly-received notions of the Trinity; and, in 1711, his 4 vols. of “.Primitive Christianity revived,” in 8vo. The first volume contains “The” Epistles of Ignatius, both larger and smaller, in Greek and English;“the third,” An Essay on those Apostolical Constitutions;“the fourth,” An account of the Primitive Faith, concerning the Trinity and Incarnation.“In March 1711, soon after the publication of his” Historical Preface,“he was attacked in the convocation, of whose proceedings, as well as those of the university, against him, he published distinct accounts, in two appendixes to that preface, when it was reprinted with additions, and prefixed to his volumes of” Primitive Christianity revived.“After his expulsion from Cambridge he went to London; where he had conferences with Clarke, Hoadly, and other learned men, who endeavoured to moderate his zeal, but he proved the superior tenderness of his conscience, by assuring them that he would not suffer his zeal to be tainted or corrupted, as he imagined it would be, with the least mixture of prudence or worldly wisdom. He tells us of those eminent persons, that, with regard to his account of the primitive faith about the Trinity and incarnation, they were not much dissatisfied with it; and that, though they were far less convinced of the authority and genuineness of the” Apostolical Constitutions," yet they wer& willing enough to receive them, as being much better and more authentic than what were already in the church.

Whiston was now settled with his family in London; and though it does not appear that he had any certain means of subsisting, yet he continued to write books, and to propagate his primitive Christianity, with as much cheerfulness and vigour as if he had been in the most flourishing circumstances. During March 1711-12, prince Eugene of Savoy was in England; and because Whiston believed himself to have discovered, in his “Essay on the Revelation of St. John,” that some of the prophecies there had been fulfilled by that general’s victory over the Turks in 1697, or by the succeeding peace of Carlowitz in 1698, he printed a short dedication, and fixing it to the cover of a copy of that essay, presented it to the prince. The prince has been said to have replied, that “he did not know he had the honour of having been known to St: John;” however, he thought proper to take so much notice of Whiston' s well-meant endeavours, a to send him a present of fifteen guineas. The dedication runs thus:

In 1715, 1716, 1717, a society for promoting primitive Christianity met weekly at his house in Cross-street, Hatton-garden, composed of about ten or twelve persons; to which society Christians of all persuasions were equally admitted. Sir Peter King, Dr. Hare, Dr. Hoadly, and Dr. Clarke, were particularly invited; but none of them, he says, ever came. In 1719, he published “A Letter of Thanks to Robinson, bishop of London, for his late Letter to his Clergy against the use of new Forms of Doxology.” The common forms having been changed by Whiston, and indeed by Dr. Clarke, was the occasion of Robinson’s admonitory letter to his clergy: and this admonitory letter tempted Whiston to do a thing, he says, which he never did before or since; that is, to expose him in the way of banter or ridicule, and to cut him with great sharpness. Upon the publication of this a Letter of Thanks“to the bishop of London, Dr. Sacheverell attempted to shut him out of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, which was then his parish* church; and Whiston published an account of it. He relates, that Mr. Wilson, a lawyer, who did not love Sacheverell, would willingly have prosecuted him for the insult) and promised to do it without any costs to him; but Whiston replied,” if I should give my consent, I should shew myself to be as foolish and as passionate as Sacheverell himself/ 7 In the same year, 1719, he published a letter to the earl of Nottingham, “concerning the eternity of the Son of God, and his Holy Spirit;” and, in the second and following editions, a defence of it; for lord Nottingham had published “an Answer” in 1721, for which he wa highly complimented by addresses from both the universities, and from the London clergy. In 1720 he was proposed by sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Halley to the royal society as a member, for he was publishing something or other in the' way of philosophy; but was refused admittance by sir Isaac Newton, the president. He tells us he had enjoyed a large portion of sir Isaac’s favour for twenty years together; but lost it at last by contradicting him when he was old. “Sir Isaac,” adds he, “was of the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper, that I ever knew; and, had he been alive when I wrote against his Chronology, and so thoroughly confuted it that nobody has ever since ventured to vindicate it, I should not have thought proper to publish my confutation; because I knew his temper so well, that I should have expected it would have killed him,: as Dr. Bentiey, bishop Stillingfleet’s chaplain, told me that he believed Mr. Locke’s thorough confutation of the bishop’s metaphysics about the Trinity hastened his end also.”

In 1721 a large subscription was made for the support of his family, but principally, his son says, to reimburse him the expences he had been at in attempting to discover the longitude, on which he had expended above Soo/. This subscription amounted to 470l. and was, he tells us, by far the greatest sum that ever was put into his hands by his friends. It was upon contributions of this nature that he seems chiefly to have depended; for, though he drew profits from reading lectures upon philosophy, astronomy, and even divinity; and also from his publications, which were numerous; and from the small estate above mentioned, yet these, of themselves, would have been very insufficient; nor, when joined with the benevolence and charity of those who loved and esteemed him for his learning, integrity, and piety, did they prevent him from being frequently in great distress. He spent the remainder of his long life in the way he was now in; that is, in talking and acting against Athanasianism, and for primitive Christianity, and in writing and publishing books from time to time. In 1722 he published “An Essay towards restoring the true Text of the Old Testament, and for vindicating the citations thence made in the New Testament;” in 1724, “The literal Accomplishment of Scripture-Prophecies,” in answer to Mr. Collinses book upon the “Grounds and reasons of the Christian Religion;” in 1726, “Of the thundering Legion, or of the miraculous deliverance of Marcus Antoninus and his army on the prayers of the Christians,” occasioned by Mr. Moyle’s works, then lately published; in 1727, “A collection of authentic Records belonging to the Old and New Testament,” translated into English; in 1730, “Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Samuel Clarke;” in 1732, “A Vindication of the Testimony of Phlegon, or an account of the great Darkness and Earthquake at our Saviour’s Passion, described by Phlegon,” in answer to a dissertation of Dr. Sykes upon that eclipse and earthquake; in 1736, “Athanasian Forgeries, Impositions, and Interpolations;” the same year, “The Primitive Eucharist revived,” against bishop Hoadly’s “Plain account of the Lord’s Supper;” in 17S7, “The Astronomical Year, or an account of the many remarkable celestial phenomena, of the great year 1736,” particularly of the comet, which was foretold by sir Isaac Newton, and came accordingly; the same year, “The genuine works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, in English, as translated from the original Greek according to Havercamp’s accurate edition: illustrated with new plans and descriptions of Solomon’s, Zorobahel’s, Herod’s, and Ezekiel’s, temples, and with correct maps of Judea and Jerusalem; together with proper notes, observations, contents, parallel texts of scripture, five complete indexes, and the true chronology of the several histories adjusted in the margin: to which are prefixed eight dissertations, viz. 1. The testimonies of Josephus vindicated; 2. The copy of the Old Testament, made use of by Josephus, proved to be that which was Collected by Neheimah; 3. Concerning God’s command to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac for a sacrifice; 4. A large inquiry into the true chronology of Josephus. 5. An extract out of Josephus’s exhortation to the Greeks concerning Hades, and the resurrection of the dead; 6. Proofs that this exhortation is genuine; 7. A demonstration that Tacitus, the Roman historian, took his history of the Jews out of Josephus; 8 A dissertation of Cellarius against Hardouin, in Vindication of Josephus’s history of the family of Herod, from coins; with an account of the Jewish coins, weights, and measures,” in folio, and since reprinted in 8vo. This is reckoned the most useful of all Whiston’s learned labours, and accordingly has met with the greatest encouragement. In 1739 he put in his claim to the mathematical professorship at Cambridge, then vacant by the death of Saunderson, in a letter to Dr. Ashton, the master of Jesus college, who, his son avers, never produced it to the heads who were the electors, and consequently no regard was paid to it. In 174.5, he published his “Primitive NewTestament, in English;” in 1748, his “Sacred History of the Old and New Testament, from the creation of the world till the days of Constarrtine the Great, reduced into Annals;”and the same year, “Memoirs of his own Life and writings,” which are curious as a faithful picture of an ingenuous, enthusiastic, and somewhat disordered mind. He continued long a member of the Church- of England, and regularly frequented its service, although he disapproved of many things in it; but at last forsook it, and went over to the baptists. This happened when he was at the house of Samuel Barker, esq. at Lyndon, in Rutland, who had married his daughter; and there it was that he dates the following memorandum: “I continued in the communion of the Church of England till Trinity Sunday, 1747: for, though I still resolved to go out of the church if Mr. Belgrave continued to read the Athanasian Creed, so did he by omitting it, both on Easter-day and Whitsunday this year, prevent my leaving the public worship till TrinitySunday, while he knew I should go out of the church if he begaq to read it. Yet did he read it that day, to my great surprise; upon which I was obliged to go out, and go to the baptist-meeting at Morcot, two miles off, as I intend to go hereafter, while I am here at Lyndon, till some better opportunity presents of setting up a more prijnitive congregation myself.”

In this manner Whiston went on to the last, bewildering himself in a maze of errors and changes, more, one would think, from temper than conviction. A short review of the progress of his opinions, with which a late eminent divine Jias furnished us, will not be without its use.

It was, as we have seen, in June 1708, that he began to be first heard of as a reputed Arian. In the August following, he offered a small essay on the apostolical constitutions to the licenser of the press at Cambridge, and was refused the licence. In 1709 he published a sermon against the eternity of hell-punishments. In 1710 he boldly asserted the apostolical constitutions to be “of equal authority with the four gospels themselves;” and a tract included in them, and called the doctrine of the apostles, to be “the most sacred of the canonical books.” In 1712 he published in favour of the Anabaptists; and the next year printed “A book of Common Prayer,” that had been reformed the backward way into Anabaptism and Arianism, and, two years afterward, set up a meeting-house for the use of it; having strangely drawn up his liturgy before he had provided his church. But he had still farther to go in his novelties. In 1723 he published a dissertation to prove the Canticles not a canonical book of scripture; in 1727 another, to prove the apocryphal book of Baruch canonical; in the same year another, to prove the epistle of Baruch to the nine tribes and a half equally canonical; jn the same year another, to prove the second book of Esdras, equally canonical; in the same year another, to prove eighteen psalms of a second Solomon equally canonical; in the same year another, to prove the book of Enoch equally canonical; in the same year another, to prove “The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs” equally canonical; and another to prove an epistle of the Corinthians to St. Paul, with St. Paul’s answer to it, equally canonical. In 1745 he published his “Primitive New Testament in English, in four parts,” and added a page at the end “exhibiting the titles of the rest of the books of the New Testament, not yet known by the body of Christians/' Among these were specified, besides, the works above recited, <: the Epistles of Timothy to Diognetus, and the Homily;” the “two Epistles of Clement to the Corinthians;” “Josephus’s homily concerning Hades;” the “Epistles of Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp;” the “Shepherd of Hernias,” and the “Martyrdom of Polycarp.” He thus, according to his own enumeration, enlarged the number of the canonical books in the New Testament, from twenty-seven to fiftysix. In 1749 he gradually reached (says the historian of Arianism) the highest point of heretical perfection. He gravely asserted, first, that “neither a bishop, a presbyter, nor a deacon, ought to be more than once married that” primitive Christianity also forbad either bishops, presbyters, or deacons, to marry at all after their ordination and that, “in the days of the apostles, a fourth marriage was entirely rejected, even in the laity.” He also ventured upon the bold presumption of ascertaining the very year, “according to the scripture prophecies,” for certain events of the highest consequence to the world; and, sucli was the ingenuous simplicity of the man, was confident enough to name a year at no great distance. In this wayhe prophesied that the Jews were to rebuild their temple, and the millenium was to commence before the year 1766. But such a spirit as Whiston’s could not stop even here, and in the same year he ventured to assert the falsehood of some things in St. Paul’s epistles, as “no part of Christ’s revelation to him,” namely, where the apostle speaks of original sin. Whiston says, they are rather “weak reasonings of his own, accommodated to the weak Jews at that time only!”

Mr. Whiston died after a week’s illness, Aug. 22, 1752, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and was buried afe Lyndon in Rutlandshire. Of his character little more need be added. He enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity during a very long life, but that he produced rrwch influence on the state of public opinion may be doubted. He was not well calculated to form, or to support, a sect already formed; his absurdities were too many and too glaring, and he received no applause, even from the Arians of his day, that was not mixed with compassion. Still his profound erudition, and his disinterested attachment to Arianism, supported by an ostensible love of truth, were likely to attract the notice of young men, who, in the ardour of free inquiry, did not immediately perceive the pernicious tendency of their new opinions. That these were sometimes eagerly imbibed was a grateful compliment to his vanity; and that they were as readily renounced, provoked the most pointed invective, which he scrupled not to use with intemperate indulgence, whenever his cause declined by the secession of his proselytes. Having himself renounced secular emoluments, as incompatible with his idea of primitive Christianity, he considered them as the only barrier to the general reception of his tenets. And he therefore upbraided those who afterwards relinquished them, as yielding only to the bias of interest: too confident to suspect a possible fallacy in his opinions, or a detection of s his own misrepresentations of the Holy Scriptures. Nor was his mind, ample and strong as it certainly often appeared to be, uninfluenced by the most consummate vanity. He flattered himself, that he was one of those luminaries, by whose etherial light we are happily assisted in the pursuit of reason and the divine truths. But it would he uncandid to deny, that he exhausted a long life in scholastic labour and self-denial, in elaborate investigations of abstruse doctrinal positions, which he inculcated with indefatigable diligence, in inflexible integrity, and a resolute contempt of wealth acquired at the expence of conscience. His moral character was blameless, but not amiable. His severe manners and systems are more readily admired than imitated; while we must yet lament his want of orthodoxy, and his pertinacious scepticism.

Whiston was occasionally exposed, as appears from the works of Swift and Pope, to the ridicule of these wits; but he was not himself without some portion of hutnour. The two following instances may be given on the authority of his son. “Being in company with Mr. Addison, sir Richard Steele, Mr. secretary Craggs, and sir Robert Waipole, they were busily engaged in a dispute, whether a secretary of state could be an honest man. Mr. Whiston, not intermeddling in it, was pressed to declare his opinion, which at length he did, by saying, he thought honesty was the best policy, and if a prime minister would practise it, he would find it so. To which Mr. Craggs replied: it might do for a fortnight; but would not do for a month.‘ Mr. Whiston asked him, ’ if he had ever tried it for a fortnight?' To which he making no reply, the company gave it for Mr. Whiston.”

“He was much esteemed by the-late queen Caroline, who generously made him a present of 50l. every year from the time she became queen, which pension his late majesty continued to him so long as he lived. The queen usually sent for him once in the summer, whilst she was out of town, to spend a day or two with her. At Richmond it happened she who loved his free conversation, asked him what people in general said of her. He replied, that they justly esteemed her as a lady of great abilities, a patron of learned men, and a kind friend to the poor. * But,‘ says she, < no one is without faults, pray what are mine’ Mr. W. begged to be excused speaking on that subject; but she insisting, he said, her majesty did not behave with proper reverence at church. She replied, the king would talk with her. He said a Greater than kings was there only to be regarded. She acknowledged it, and confessed her fault. < Pray,‘ says she, * tell me what is my next?’ He replied, < When I hear your majesty has amended of that fault, I will tell you of your next;' and so it ended.” This last anecdote Whiston often repeated.

Whiston married, in 1 69y, Ruth, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Antrobus, master of Tamworth-school, by whom he had several children, three of whom survived him. The eldest a daughter, Sarah, was married to Samuel Barker of Lyndon, in Rutlandshire, esq. at whose house he died. This lady died in 1791. His surviving sons were George and John, the latter an eminent bookseller, who died in 1780. Whiston had a younger brother, the Rev. Daniel Whiston, frequently mentioned in his “Memoirs,” and who appears to have entertained an equal aversion to the Athanasian Creed. He was curate at Somersham for fifty-two years; but his principles did not permit him to accept of any living. He died in 1759, leaving a son, the Rev. Thomas Whiston, who died in 1795. Of this Daniel Whiston, we have heard nothing more remarkable than that he left behind him several hundred manuscript sermons, which he had never preached.

, a learned English divine, and able antiquary, was born at Manchester, about 1735. He went early to Oxford, where he was elected fellow of Corpus Chrisii college, and where he discovered, in a very short tune, those fine originalities, those peculiarities of rniiui, which afterwards so strongly marked him as an author and as a man. He took the degree of' M. A. 1759; and proceeded B. D. 1767. His uncommon vigour of intellect at once displayed itself among hisacquaintance but, whilst his animated conversation drew many around him, a few were repelled from the circle by his impatience of contradiction (a failing which frequently accompanies powers like his), and by the consciousness, his biographer thinks, of their own inferiority. The character of his gepjus, however, was soon decided in literary composition. In 1771, Mr. W. published the first volume of his “History of Manchester,*' in quarto; a work which, for acute* ness of research, bold imagination, independent sentiment, and correct information, has scarcely its parallel in the literature of the country. Nor does its composition less merit our applause, whether we have respect to the arrangement of the materials, the style, or the language. In some passages there is” supreme elegance;“in others a magnificence of thought, a force of expression, a glow of diction, truly astonishing. The introduction of Christianity into this island, in particular, is uncommonly beautiful. With regard to the general subject of the” Manchester,“he was the first writer who could so light up the region of antiquarianism as to dissipate its obscurity, even to the eyes pf ordinary spectators; his” Manchester“being perhaps the book in which the truth of our island history has been test elucidatedr It is rather singular that this work was in the order of merit, as well as time, the first of Mr.Wbitaker’s publications. In proportion as he advanced in life, his imagination seems, by a strange inversion of what is characteristic of our nature, to have gained an ascendancy pver his judgment; and we shall perceive more of fancy and passion, of conjecture and hypothesis, in some of his subsequent productions, than of just opinion, or deliberate investigation. Mr. Whitaker’s” Genuine History of the Britons asserted,“an octavo volume, published in 1772, may be considered as a sequel to the” Manchester.“It contains a complete refutation of” the unhappy Macpherson,“whose” Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland" is full of palpable mistakes and misrepresentations.

In 1773 we find Mr. Whi taker the morning preacher of Berkeley chapel, London; to which office he had been appointed in November, by a Mr. Hughes; but in less than two months he was removed from that situation. This gave occasion to “The Case between Mr. W. and Mr. Hughes, relative to the Morning Preachership of Berkeley Chapel;” in which Mr. W. declares himself “unalterably determined to carry the matter into Westminster-hall.” But the fervour of his resentment threw him off his guard; and he expressed himself so indiscreetly, that his Case was considered as a libel by the Court of King’s Bench. During his residence in London, he had an opportunity of conversing with several of our most celebrated writers; among whom were Dr. Johnson, and Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire. It does not appear, indeed, that Johnson was much attached to Whitaker. Both strong in understanding, equally tenacious of opinion, and equally impassioned in conversation, it is not probable that they should amicably coalesce on all occasions. In the Ossianic controversy they were decidedly hostile. With Gibbon Mr.Whitaker was well acquainted; and the ms. of the first volume of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was sub r rnitted to his inspection. But he was greatly surprised when, as he read the same volume in print, that chapter which has been so obnoxious to the Christian world, was then first introduced to his notice! That chapter Gibbon had suppressed in tjie ms. overawed by Mr. Whitaker’s high character, and afraid of his censure. And, in fact, that the deist should have shrunk from his indignant eye, may well be conceived, when we see his Christian principle and his manly spirit in the rejection of a living of considerable value, which was at this time offered him by an Unitarian patron. Of his integrity, however, some recompense was now at hand: and about 1778, he succeeded as fellow of Corpus Christi college, to the rectory of RuanLanyhorne, one of the most valuable livings in the gift of that College; and into Cornwall he went, to reside upon his rectory. There, it might have been expected that retirement and leisure would greatly favour the pursuits of literature; and that, though “the converser” (to use an expression of Mr. Whitaker’s) had disappeared, the author would break forth with new energies. But Ruan-Lany-r home was, for several years, no tranquil seat of the muses. That pleasant seclusion was now the scene of unavoidable contest. Mr. W. had proposed a tithe-composition with his par shiontTs, by no means unreasonable. This they refused to pay: but he was steady to his purpose. A rupture ensued between the parties; the tithes were demanded in kind; disputes arose upon disputes; animosities were kindled; and litigations took place. That Mr. Whitaker was finally victorious, afforded pleasure to the friends of the rector, and to the friends of justice and truth; yet it was long before harmony was restored to Ruan-Lanyhorne. That his literary schemes had been so sadly interrupted, was the subject of general regret. But the conscientious pastor looked with a deeper concern to the spiritual welfare of his parishioners. He saw with sorrow their aversion to his preaching; their indifference to his instructions; their repugnance“to his authority; and” he laboured more abundantly;“till, after a few years, he had the satisfaction to perceive a visible alteration in the behaviour of the principal parishioners; and a mutual good understanding was established between the pastor and his flock. His cordial, his familiar manner, indeed, was always pleasing to those whom prejudice had not armed against him; and, in proportion as they became acquainted with his kind disposition, the transitoriness of his resentments, and, after injuries, his promptness to forgive, and anxious wish to be forgiven; they endeavoured more and more to cultivate his friendship, and at length loved and revered him as their father. Kothing can more fully display the warmth of his affections, his zeal as a minister of Christ, or his impassioned style of eloquence, than those” Sermons“upon death, judgment, heaven, and hell, which he published in 1783, after having preached them to his parishioners, we doubt not, with a voice and manner calculated to penetrate the conscience. That he should have published so little in the line of his profession, is perhaps to be regretted. His” Origin of Arianism,“however, is a large volume, full of erudition and ingenious argumentation. We have read no other work of Mr. W. in divinity, except” The Real Origin of Government“(expanded into a v considerable treatise, from a sermon which he had preached before bishop Buller, at his lordship’s primary visitation), and” The Introduction to FlindelPs Bible.“This has been much admired as a masterly piece of eloquence. In the mean time the antiquary was not at rest. His” Mary, queen of Scots,“published in 1787, in three octavo volumes; his” Course of Hannibal over the Alps“his” Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall;“and his” Supplement to Polwhele’s Antiquities of Cornwall;“furnish good evidence of an imagination continually occupied in pursuits which kindled up its brightest flame; though not always of that judgment, discretion, or candour, which (if human characters had been ever perfect) we should have expected from a Whitaker. But not even here were his antiquarian stores exhausted.” The Life of St Neot,“”The History of Oxford,“and” The History of London," were works all at once projected, and no sooner projected than executed in imagination, and more than half executed in reality.

In criticism, (where writing anonymously he would probably have written with the less restraint) we find him for the most part candid and good-natured, not sparing of censure, yet lavish of applause; and affording, in numerous instances, the most agreeable proofs of genuine benevolence. Even in the instance of Gibbon, where he has been thought severe beyond all former example, we have a large mixture of sweet with the bitter. It was his critique on Gibbon which contributed principally to the reputation of the “English Review;” in which Mr. W. was the author of many valuable articles. To his pen. also the “British Critic,” and “The Antijacobiu Review,*' were indebted for various pieces of criticism. But the strength of his principles is no where more apparent than in those articles where he comes forward, armed with the panoply of truth, in defence of our civil and ecclesiastical Constitution. He was also a poet. That he contributed some fine pieces of poetry to” The Cornwall and Devon Poets,“is well known. These were published in two small octavo volumes. He occasionally displayed his powers in the several departments of the Historian, the Theologist, the Critic, the Politician, and the Poet. Versatility like Whitaker’s is, in truth, of rare occurrence. But still more rare is the splendor of original genius, exhibited in walks so various. Not that Mr. W. was equally happy in them all. His characteristic traits as a writer were, acute discernment, and a Velocity of ideas which acquired new force in composition, and a power of combining images in a manner peculiarly striking, and of flinging on every topic of discussion the strongest illustration. With little scruple, therefore, we hazard an opinion, that though hi* chief excellence be recognized in antiquarian research, he would have risen to higher eminence as a poet, had he cultivated in early youth the favour of the Muses. Be this, however, as it may; there are none who will deny him the praise of a” great“literary character. That he was” good“as well as great, would sufficiently appear in the recollection of any period of his life; whether we saw him abandoning preferment from principle, and heard him” reasoning of righteousness and judgment to come,“until a Gibbon trembled; or whether, among his parishioners, we witnessed his unaffected earnestness of preaching, his humility in conversing with the poorest cottagers, his sincerity in assisting them with advice, his tenderness in offering them consolation, and his charity in relieving -their distresses. It is true, to the same warmth of temper, together with a sense of good intentions, we must attribute an irritability at times destructive of social comfort; and an impetuousness that brooked not opposition, and bore down all before it. This precipitation was in part also to be traced to his ignorance of the world; to his simplicity in believing others like himself precisely what they seemed to be; and, oo the detection of his error, his anger at dissimulation or hypocrisy. But his general good humour, his hospitality, and his convivial pleasantry, were surely enough to atone for those sudden bursts of passion, those flashes, which betrayed his human frailty, but still argued genius. And they who knew how” fearfully and wonderfully he was made," could bear from a Whitaker what they would certainly have resented in another. We should add, that in his family Mr. Whitaker was uniformly regular; nor did he suffer, at any time, his literary cares to trench on his domestic duties.

Not many months before his death the writer of this article heard him speak of “Notes on Shakspeare,” and “Illustrations of the Bible.” But he wished to finish his “Oxford,” his “London,” and his “St. Neot,” (already mentioned as projected publications) before he resumed his “Shakspeare,” on which he had occasionally written notes; and, to lay aside his “Shakspeare,” before he took up his 'Bible." To the Bible he meant at last to withdraw himself from all other studies.

With a view to the last three antiquarian works, (but chiefly to “the London,”) he determined to travel to the metropolis: and thither he travelled, with all the ardour of youthful spirits. But even for his athletic frame he had a mind of too restless an activity. Amidst his indefatigable researches into the antiquities of the city, his friends detected the first symptoms of bodily decay. His journey to London, his vast exertions there in procuring information, his energetic and various conversation with literary characters, brought on a debility which he little regarded, till it alarmed him in a stroke of paralysis. From this stroke, not long after his return into Cornwall, he recovered so far as to be able to persue (though not many hours in a day) his accustomed studies and it was the Life of St. Neot that chiefly occupied his 1 attention, and which was published after his death. He died Oct. 30, 1808.

, one of the most eminent divines of the sixteenth century, was born at Holme, in the parish of Burnley in Lancashire, in 1547, and was the descendant of an ancient family. His mother was Elizabeth Nowell, sister to the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s, who married Thomas Whitaker, gentleman, in 1530, and sur* vived her marriage the wonderful period of seventy-six years. He acquired the elements of grammar at Burnley, where Mr. William Hargrave was at that time master, to whom in his declining years he was a kind benefactor. He was sent for, in his thirteenth year, by Dean Nowell, who maintained him in his own house, and placed him at St. Paul’s school, where he made snch rapid and satisfactory progress that, at the age of eighteen, his pious kinsman sent him to Trinity college, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. afterwards Dr. Robert West. His progress here being equally admired, he was first chosen scholar and then fellow. He soon procured high esteem and great fame by his learned disputations and other exercises, which afforded a proof both of his talents and application. It was his practice, and that of several other eminent persons of his time, to stand while employed in study. In 1569 he published the Prayers of the Church of England in Greek, a small volume printed by Reynold Wolf; a circumstance which requires to be mentioned, because most of his biographers assert that he was first known by his translation of Nowell’s catechism; but that translation was not printed till 1573, four years after this version of the Prayers. He had about this time suffered long and severely by a quartan ague; and as he could not live without some literary employment, he made choice of this. The book contains the morning and evening prayers, the litany, the catechism, the collects, and, to fill a vacant page or two, the prayer after receiving the holy communion, accompanied with the Latin version, (the work, as is supposed, of Walter Haddon,) which had been published by the queen’s authority a fewyears before. It is dedicated, in a prefatory address in Latin, to his uncle and patron, the dean of St. Paul’s; from whom he had received, from his childhood, innumerable favours; to whom therefore, he says, of right belonged whatsoever he could perform; and he intreats him to protect his labours, and expresses a hope, that, if he is indulgent in this his first attempt, he may one day produce something not unworthy of his acceptance. The translation achieved under such circumstances, when the author, a bachelor of arts, had barely entered his twenty- first year, must have raised great hopes, which his future progress and celebrity did not disappoint.

He also, as just noticed, translated NowelPs Catechisms into Greek, the larger of which was printed in 1573, and dedicated to the lord treasurer, sir William Cecil, and the smaller in 1575, dedicated to Nowell. He also translated into Latin, bishop Jewel’s reply to Harding. These increased his reputation, extending it to Oxford, where he wa incorporated doctor of divinity. On the preferment of Dr. William Chaderton to the bishoprick of Chester, Dr. Whitaker succeeded him in 1579 in the office of regius professor at Cambridge. Although considered by many as rather too young for a place to which many of his seniors had pretensions, he proved, by his course of lectures, that he was deficient in none of the qualities of an able divine and accomplished professor. He soon displayed copious reading, sound judgment, and an eloquence and vigour which greatly increased the number as well as quality of his hearers. While in this office he remained the indefatigable student, making himself acquainted with the writings of the fathers, both Greek and Latin, and of the eminent divines and ecclesiastical historians. In his lectures, he began with various select parts of the New Testament, and then entered upon the controversies between the papists and protestants. The latter were matters of the first importance at that time, and Whitaker accordingly took an ample share in confirming the protestant establishment, and carried on a successful controversy with some of the champions of the Romish church, particularly Campian, Dury, Saunders, &c. Cardinal Bellarmine, though often foiled by his pen, honoured his picture with a place in his library; aud said, he was the most learned heretic he had ever read.

In the same year (1579) the queen gave him the chancellorship of St. Paul’s, and he was afterwards preferred to the mastership of St. John’s college, Cambridge, by mandamus, although not without opposition from some of the members, whom he soon reconciled to his administration. He governed the college with great prudence and moderation, and sacrificed his own interest for the advantage of the public. He also greatly revived the reputation of the house, and increased the number of its members, which led to an increase in the buildings. He was now again involved in controversy with the popish writers, particularly Bellarmine and Stapieton; and some of his pieces on the subjects in dispute were printed. Having arrived at great celebrity, he is mentioned by Baker and other historians as being concerned in most of the public transactions of the university of Cambridge.

In 1587 he resigned the chancellorship of St. Paul’s, for what reason does not appear; but in 1591 Dr. Goad, provost of King’s college, presented a request to dean Nowell, in behalf of Dr. Whitaker, that he might be preferred tq some more valuable benefice. The venerable dean, anxious to serve his friend and kinsman, forwarded Dr. Goad’s letter, the day he received it, together with one of his own, to the lord treasurer; reminding his lordship of Dr. Whitaker’s great learning, well known at Cambridge by the productions of his pen in Greek and Latin; and not unknown to his lordship, to whom several of his works had been dedicated. His fitness for presiding over a learned society (Trinity college was in view, then about to be vacant) had partly appeared, from the quietness and good order which had been established in St. John’s college since he became master; and as to his circumstances, they were so far from bn no affluent, that the dean, in consideration of his poverty, had now for two years past taken upon him the maintenance of one of his sons. This application, however, lor whatever reason, proved unsuccessful.

In 1589, an assembly was held at his college, by the celebrated puritan Cartwright and others, for the purpose of promoting a purer form of discipline in the church. Whitaker, as appears by a letter to Whitgift, was by no means a favourer of Cartwright' s opinions, many of which he thought intemperate and intemperateiy expressed; but when, in consequence of this meeting, some imperfections in the “Book of Discipline” were corrected, altered, and amended, he had no objection to join in subscribing the Book thus amended. The year following, he was charged with holding or forming a presbytery in his college, and with other accasations, which he appears to have repelled with success, although the particulars are not upon record. Some have doubted whether he was a puritan, or ought to be classed with those whto were hostile to the forms of the church. But upon the whole, although far more moderate than many of his contemporaries, he not only associated with, but countenanced the objections of some of the leaders of the puritans to certain points of church discipline and government. Beheld many meetings in the university with Fulke, Chaderton, Dod, and others; but the purpose of these was only to expound the scriptures. In 1595, however, there were some warm disputes about points of Christian doctrine; and when these began at Cambridge Dr. Whitaker had no inconsiderable share. Deeply rooted, says Mr. archdeacon Churton, in the principles of Calvinism, he is yet to be commended for his candour in acknowledging, at the very time when the predestinarian dispute ran high, that “these points were not concluded and defined by public authority in our church.”

That controversy, however, appears to have cost him his life. For coming up to London with the five Lambeth articles, as they were called, and pursuing that business warmly, but withocrt success, and having paid what proved to be a farewell visit at the deanery of St. Paul’s, on his return to Cambridge, fatigued and disappointed, he fell sick, and within a fortnight died, in the forty-seventh year of his age, Dec. 4, 1595. Of the dignity of his person and eloquence of speech (besides innumerable allusions in the verses on his death) we have evidence in the pointed appeal of Bishop Hall, who knew him well, to his correspondent Mr. Bedell, who also knew him well: “Who,” says he, “ever saw him without reverence, or heard him without wonder?” Of his unwearied industry and profound learning his various works afford a pregnant proof; nor were his charity and humility less conspicuous. When he lay on his death-bed, and was told of the symptoms of his approaching dissolution, he said, “Life or death is welcome to me; and I desire not to live, but so far as I may be serviceable to God and his church.” Gataker, who wrote his life, says, “He was a man very personable, of a goodly presence, tall of stature, and upright; of a grave aspect, with black hair, and a ruddy complexion; a solid judgment, a liberal mind, an affable disposition; a mild, yet not remiss governor; a contemner of money; of a moderate diet; a life generally unblameable, and (that which added a lustre to all the rest) amidst all these endowments, and the respects of others, even the greatest, thereby deservedly procured, of a most meek and lowly spirit.” Wood says, he “was one of the greatest men his college ever produced; and the desire and love of the present times, and the envy of posterity, that cannot bring forth a parallel.”

Dr. Whitaker was twice married, to “women of good birth and note,” and had eight children by them. His surviving wife, described as ready to lie-in when he expired, caused her child to be baptized on Dec. 11, the day after her husband’s funeral, by the name of Jabez, doubtless for the scriptural reason, “because,” she said, “I bare him with sorrow.” A few particulars of his family may be seen in our authorities. Mr. Churton, who has furnished much of the preceding information, in his excellent Life of dean Nowell, has also embellished that work with a fine portrait of Whitaker, and a view of the house in which he was born, now the property of the Rev. Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL. D. Dr. Whitaker' s corpse had a public funeral, and was interred in the chapel of St. John’s college.

His works, besides the translations already noticed, were, 1. “Answer to Edmund Campian his ten Reasons.” 2. “A defence of his answer against John Durye.” 3. “A refutation of Nicolas Sannders his Demonstration, whereby he would prove that the Pope is not Antichrist.” 4. “A collection thereto added of ancient heresies raked up again to make the popish apostacy.” 5. “A thesis propounded and defended at the commencement in 1582. that the Pope is the Antichrist spoken of in Scripture.” 6. “Answer to William Rainolds against the Preface to that against Saunders in English.” 7. “A disputation concerning the Scripture against the Papists of these times, particularly Bellarminc and Stapleton.” 8. “A defence of the authority of the Scriptures, against Thomas Stapleton his defence of the authority of the Church.” 9. “Lectures on the Controversies concerning the Bishop of Rome/' 10” Lectures on the Controversie concerning the Church.“11.” Lectures on the Controversie concerning Councils.“12.” A treatise of Original Sin, against Slapleton’s three former books of Justification.“The last four articles were published after the author’s death by John Allenson. 13.” A lecture on 1 Tim. ii. 4. read on Feb. 27, 1594, before the earl of Essex, and other honourable persons.“14.” Lectures concerning the Sacraments in general, and the Eucharist and Baptism in particular." This last was taken down by John Allenson, and published by Dr. Samuel Ward. Whitaker’s works were afterwards collected and published in Latin, at Geneva, in 1610, 2 vols. fol.

, a learned divine, but of unsteady character, was born in 1638, at Rushden, -or Rusden, in Northamptonshire, and was in 1653 admitted of Trinity college, Oxford, of which he was elected a scholar in June 1655. He took his degree of B. A. in 1657, and that of M. A. in 1660. In 1664, he was elected fellow of his college, and the same year he engaged in controversy with the popish writers, by publishing, 1. “Romish Doctrines not from the beginning: or a Reply to what S. C. (Serenus Cressy), a Roman catholick, hath returned to Dr. Pierce’s Sermon preached before his Majesty at Whitehall, Feb. 1, 1662, in vindication of our Church against the novelties of Rome,” Lond. 4to. This was followed in 1663 by another piece against Serjeant, entitled, 2. “An Answer to Sure Footing, so far as Mr Whitby is concerned in it,” &c. 8vo. 3. “An endeavour to evince the certainty of Christian Faith in general, and of the Resurrection of Christ in particular.” Oxford, 1671, 8vo. 4. “A Discourse concern”, ing the idolatry of the Church of Rome; wherein that charge is justified, and the pretended Refutation of Dr. Stillingfleet’s Discourse is answered.“London, 1674, 8vo. 5.” The absurdity and idolatry of Host-Worship proved, by shewing how it answers what is said in Scripture and the Writings of the Fathers; to shew the folly and idolatry committed in the worship of the Heathen Deities. Also a full answer to all those pleas hy which Papists would wipe off the charge of Idolatry; and an Appendix against Transubstantiation; with some reflections on a late Popish book, called, The Guide of Controversies,“London, 1679, 8vo. 6.” A Discourse concerning the Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil made against Heretics by Popes, Emperors, and Kings, Provincial and General Councils, approved by the Church of Rome. Shewing, I. What Protestant subjects may expect to suffer under a Popish Prince acting according to those Laws. II. That no Oath or Promise of such a Prince can give them any just security that he will not execute these laws upon them. With a preface against persecuting and destroying Heretics,“London, 1682, 4to. Reprinted at London, 1723, in 8vo, with an Introduction by bishop Kennet, who ascribes this piece to Dr. Maurice, but it was reclaimed by Dr. Whitby himself in his” Twelve Sermons preached at the Cathedral of Sarum."

Thus far Dr. Whitby had proceeded with credit to himself, and with satisfaction to the church to which he belonged, and the patron who had befriended him. Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, who made him his chaplain, and in Oct. 1668 collated him to the prebend of Yatesbury in that cathedral, and in November following to the prebend of Husborn Tarrant and Burbach. He was also in September 1672 admitted precentor of the same church, about which time he accumulated the degrees of B. D. and D. D. and was preferred to the rectory of St. Edmund’s church in Salisbury. But in 182 he excited general censure by the publication of, “The Protestant Reconciler, humbly pleading for condescension to Dissenting Brethren in things indifferent and unnecessary, for the sake of peace; and shewing how unreasonable it is to make such things the necessary conditions of Communion. By a well-wisher to the Church’s Peace, and a Lamenter of her sad Divisions,” Lond. 1683, in 8vo. What kind of work this was, wili appear most clearly by his own declaration hereafter mentioned. It was published without his name, but he must have been soon discovered. The first opposition made to it was in the way of controversy, by various divines who answered it. Among these were, Laurence Womack, D. D. in his “Suffragium Protestantium: wherein our governors are justified in their impositions and proceedings against Dissenters, Meisner also, and the Verdict rescued from the cavils and seditious sophistry of the Protestant Reconciler,” Loud. 1683, 8vo; David Jenner, B. D. sometime of Caius college in Cambridge, afterwards rector of Great Wariey in Essex, prebendary of Sarum, and chaplain to his majesty, in his “Bilrons: or a new discovery of Treason under the fair face and mask of Religion, and of Liberty of Conscience, &c.” Lond. 1683, 4to; the author of “An awakening Word to the Grand jury men of the nation,” Lond. 1683, 4to, to which is added, “A brief comparison between Dan. Whitby and Titus Gates: the first protected in his virulence to sacred majesty by one or two of his fautors: the second punished for his abuses of the king’s only brother by the loyal chiefjustice Jefferies. The first saved harmless in many preferments (three of which are in one church of Sarum:) the second fined in mercy no more than 100,Oooz.” Samuel Thomas, M. A. in two pieces printed without his name, viz. “Animadversions upon a late treatise, entitled, the Protestant Reconciler,” &c. Lond. 1683, 8vo, and “Remarks on the Preface to the Protestant Reconciler, in a letter to a friend: dated February the 28ih, 1682,” Lond. 1683, 4to. The author of the pamphlet entitled “Three Letters of Thanks to the Protestant Reconciler. 1. From the Anabaptists at Munster. 2. From the Congregations in New England. 3. From the Quakers in Pensylvania.” It does not appear that Dr. Whitby made any reply to these; and the disapprobation of his book increased so much, that at length it was condemned by the university of Oxford in their congregation held July the 21st, 1683, and burnt by the hands of the university-marshal in the Schools Quadrangle. Some passages, likewise, gave such offence to bishop Ward, that he obliged our author to make a retractation, which he did in the following form: “October the 9th, 1683. I Daniel Whitby, doctor of divinity, chantor of the church of Sarum, and rector of the parish church of St. Edmund’s in the city and diocese of Sarum, having been the author of a book called * The Protestant Reconciler,' which through want of prudence and deference to authority I have caused to be printed and published, am truly and heartily sorry for the same, and for any evil influence it hath had upon the Dissenters from the Church of England establised by law, or others. And whereas it contained several passages, which I am confirmed in my conscience are obnoxious to the canons, and do reflect upon the governors of the said church, I do hereby openly revoke and renounce all irreverent and unmeet expressions contained therein, by which I have justly incurred the censure or displeasure of ray superiors. And furthermore, whereas these two propositions have been deduced and concluded from the said book, viz. 1. That it is not lawful for superiors to impose any thing in the worship of God, that is not antecedently necessary; 2. The duty of not offending a weak brother is inconsistent with all human authority of making laws concerning indifferent things: I do hereby openly renounce both the said propositions, being false, erroneous, and schismatical, and do revoke and disclaim all tenets, positions, and assertions contained in the said book, from whence these positions can be inferred. And whereinsoever I have offended therein, I do heartily beg pardon of God and th church for the same.” This retractation is styled by one of his biographers “an instance of human weakness,” but it was of such weakness as seems to have adhered to this divine throughout life, for we shall soon find him voluntarily retracting opinions of far greater consequence. In the mean time he carried the same weakness so far, as to publish a second part of his “Protestant Reconciler, earnestly persuading the Dissenting Laity to join in full Communion with the Church of England; and answering all the objections of Nonconformists against the lawfulness of their submission unto the rights and constitutions of that Church,” Lond. 1683, 8vo. His next publications were two pamphlets in vindication of the revolution, and the oath of allegiance. He also published some more tracts on the popish controversy, and an excellent compendium of ethics. “Ethices compendium in usum academicae juventutis,” Oxford, 1684, 12mo, which has often been reprinted and used as a text-book. In 1691 he published “A Discourse concerning the truth and certainty of the Christian faith, from the extraordinary gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed to the Apostles and primitive professors of that faith.”

His most important publication was his “Paraphrase and commentary on the New Testament,” which appeared in 1703, 2 vols. fol. and was the fruit of fifteen years study. He published afterwards the following pieces as a sequel to, or connected with his commentary: “Additional annotations to the New Testament;” with seven discourses; and an Appendix, entitled “Examen variantium Lectionuni Johannis Millii in Novum Testamentum;” or, “An Examination of the various readings in Dr. Mill’s New Testament;” “The necessity and usefulness of the Christian IleveJation, by reason of the corruptions of the principles of natural religion among Jews and Heathens,” London, 1705, 8vo; “Reflections on some assertions and opinions of Mr. Dodweli, contained in a hook entitled ' An Epistolary discourse proving from the Scripture and first fathers, that the soul is a principle naturally mortal. Shewing the falsehood and the pernicious consequences of them. To which is added an answer to a pamphlet, entitled, some passages in Dr. Whitby’s paraphrase and annotations on the New Testament contrary to Scripture and the received Doctrine of the Church of England,” London, 1707, 8vo.

He now published his refutations of Calvinism, first, “Four Discourses, shewing, I. That the Apostle’s words, Romans the ninth, have no relation to any personal Election or Reprobation. II. That the Election mentioned in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Gentiles is only that of the Gentiles to be God’s Church and People. III. That these two assertions of Dr. John Edwards, viz. 1. That God’s foreknowledge of future contingencies depends on his decree, and that he foreknows them, because he decreed them: 2. That God did from all eternity decree the commission of all the sins in the world: are false, blasphemous, and render God the author of sin. IV. Being a Vindication of my Annotations from the Doctor’s cavils. To which is added, as an appendix, a short answer to the Doctor’s discourse concerning the fixed term of human life,” London, 1710, 8vo. And secondly, “A Discourse concerning, 1. The true import of the words Election and Reprobation; and the things signified by them in the Holy Scriptures. 2. The Extent of Christ’s 'Redemption. 3. The Grace of God: where it is inquired, whether it be vouchsafed sufficiently to those who improve it not, and irresistibly to those who do improve it; and whether men be wholly passive in the work of their regeneration? 4. The Liberty of the Will in a State of Trial and Probation. 5. The Perseverance or Defectibility of the Saints: with some reflections on the state of the Heathens, the Providence and Prescience of God,” London, 1710, 8vo.

Some extracts from the preface to this work will shew by what process Dr. Whitby was led to those changes of opinion, which ended at last in a denial of all he had written on many other important points. It is a curious process, and not, we are afraid, peculiar to him only. In this Preface he observes, “That what moved him narrowly to search into the” principal of the Caivinistical Doctrines, especially that of the imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity, was the strange consequences which attended it. After some years study he met with one who seemed to be a Deist; and telling him, that there were arguments sufficient to prove the truth of the Christian Faith and of the Holy Scriptures, the other scornfully replied, ‘Yes, and you will prove your doctrine of the imputation of original sin from the same Scripture;’ intimating that he thought that doctrine, if contained in it, sufficient to invalidate the truth and authority of the Scripture. The objection of this Deistical person our author reduces into this form: the truth of the Holy Scripture can no otherwise be proved to any one who doubts it, but by reducing him to SDme absurdity, or the denial of some avowed principle of reason; but the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity, so as to render them obnoxious to God’s wrath and eternal damnation, seems as contrary to the common reason of mankind as any thing can be, and so contains as strong an argument against the truth of Scripture, if it be contained in it, as any that can be offered for it. Upon this account our author searched farther into the places usually alledged to confirm that doctrine, and upon inquiry found them fairly capable of other interpretations. One doubt remained still, whether antiquity did not give suffrage to this doctrine; and though Vossius roundly asserts this, yet our author upon inquiry found, that all the passages, which he had collected, were either impertinent or at least insufficient to prove his point. And having made a collection of these matters, our author finished a treatise of ‘Original Sin’ in Latin about twenty years before, though he did not think proper to publish it. He tells us likewise, that he discoursed another time with a physician, who was of opinion, that there was some cause to doubt of the truth of Scripture, because it seems plainly to deliver the doctrine of ‘ absolute Election and Reprobation’ in the 9th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; which doctrine is attended with more absurdities than can be charged on them who question the truth of the Scriptures, and seems as repugnant to the common notions which mankind have received of the divine justice, goodness, and sincerity, as even the saying, that God considering man * in massa perdita,‘ as lost in Adam, may delude him with false miracles, seems repugnant to his truth. And reading in Mr. Dodweli that bold stroke, that St. Paul being bred a Pharisee, spake in that chapter ’ ex mente Pbarisaeorum,‘ according to the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning fate, which they borrowed from the stoics; this gave our author occasion to set himself to make the best and exactest search he could into the sense of the Apostle in that chapter; and the best help he had to attain to the sense of that chapter, which he has given in his ’ Paraphrase,' he received from a manuscript of Dr. Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely. Thence he went on to examine all that was urged in favour of tnese doctrines from the Scriptures* It was no small confirmation to him of the places usually produced, and which he rescued from the adversaries of the doctrine he contends for; first, that he found, that he still sailed with the stream of antiquity, seeing only St, Austin with his two boatswains Prosper and Fulgentius tugging hard against it, and often driven back into it by the strong current of Scripture, reason, and common sense: secondly, that he observed, that the heretics of old used many of the same texts of Scripture to the same purposes as the Decretalists do at present. And thirdly, that the Valentinians, Marcionites, Basilidians, Manichees, Priscil*­lianists, and other heretics were condemned by the ancient champions of the church upon the same accounts, and from the same Scriptures and reasons, which he now uses against the Decretalists."

Having proceeded thus far, with the reputation of an orthodox Arminian, and an able opponent of Calvinism, he had one step farther to go. When he wrote his Commentary on the New Testament, the study of fifteen years bestowed on that work had discovered nothing to him to shake his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity; but what fifteen years could not do, as many days were sufficient to eflect in the present fluctuating state of his opinions; for immediately on the appearance of Dr. Clarke’s “Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,” Whitby became a decided Arian, and published, but in Latin, a treatise to prove, “that the controversies raised about the Trinity could not be certainly determined from fathers, councils, or catholic tradition;” and a discourse, shewing, that the exposition which the ante-Nicene fathers have given of the texts alleged against the Rev. Mr. Clarke by a learned layman (Mr. Nelson), are more agreeable to the interpretation of Dr. Clarke than to the interpretations of that learned layman.“On this subject he had a short controversy with Dr. Waterland. In these sentiments Dr. Whitby remained to the last; as may be seen by the following extract from the preface to his” Last Thoughts.“” An exact scrutiny into things doth often produce conviction, that those things which we once judged to be right, were, after a more diligent inquiry into truth, found to be otherwise; and truly,“says Dr. Whitby,” I am not ashamed to say, this is my case; for when I wrote my Commentaries on the New Testament, I went on (too hastily, I own,) in the common beaten road of other reputed orthodox divines; conceiving, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in one complex notion, were one and the same God, by virtue of the same individual essence communicated from the Father. This confused notion, I am now fully convinced, by the arguments I have offered here, and in the second part of my reply to Dr. Waterland, to be a thing impossible, and full of gross absurdities and contradictions."

After having thus determined, that the majority of his brethren were helievers in “gross absurdities and contradictions,” we are not surprised to find him publishing some pamphlets in defence of Hoadly, in the Bangorian controversy. His last work, but which he did not live to see published, was that just mentioned, under the title of “The last Thoughts of Dr. Whitby, containing his correction of several passages in his Commentary on the New Testament. To which are added five Discourses,” published by his express order; and with an account of his life, drawn up by Dr. Sykes, principally from the 'Athenae OxoniensesV* It is in this work that he retracts all he had written in support of the doctrine of the Trinity; and appeals “to the searcher of hearts,” and calls God to witness, <c whether he had hastily or rashly departed from the common opinion," &c.

Dr. Whitby died March 24, 1726, aged eighty-eight years. It is said, that he preached the day before, at St. Edmund’s church. How he conducted thie service of the. church, after changing his opinions, we are not told. Wood, who lived till 1695, gives his character in the following words.: “He is a person very welt read in the fathers, and in polemical divinity, especially as to the main' part thereof, which is directed against papists. He hath been all along so wholly devoted to his severer studies, that he hath scarcely ever allowed himself leisure to mind any of those mean and trifling worldly concerns, which administer matter of gain, pleasure, reach, and cunning. Also he hath not been in the least tainted with those too much now-a-days practised arts of fraud, cozenage, and deceit.” He was upwards of fifty when Wood gave this good character of him; to which Dr. Sykes adds, “that he was in stature short and very thin, had a tenacious memory, even to the last, and always closely appliecj himself to his studiesthat he was ever strangely ignorant of worldly affairs, even to a degree that is scarcely to be conceived; and that he was easy, affable, pious, devout, and charitable.”

He published more pieces than we have enumerated, and some volumes of sermons. Of all his works his “Commentary” only is now in reputation, being generally joined with those of Patrick and Lowth, to form a series of commentaries on the whole of the Bible. His work on the Five Points has likewise been reprinted more than once.

, an English divine, and very ingenious naturalist, was the eldest son of John White of Selborne, in Hampshire, esq. and of Anna, the daughter of the rev. Thomas Holt, rector of Streatham, in Surrey. He was born at Selborne, July 18, 1720, and received his school education at Basingstoke, under the rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two distinguished characters, Dr. Joseph, and Mr. Thomas Warton. In Dec. 1739, he was admitted of Oriel college, Oxford, and took his degree of B. A. in 1743. In March 1744 he was elected fellow of his college. He became M. A. in Oct. 1746, and was admitted one of the senior proctors of the university in April 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, and strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed his residence in his native village, where he spent the greater part of his life in literary occupations, and especially in the study of nature. This he followed with patient assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and benevolence, which such a study is so well calculated to afford. Though several occasions offered of settling upon a college living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved spot, which is, indeed, a peculiarly happy situation for an observer. He was much esteemed by a select society of intelligent and worthy friends, to whom he paid occasional visits. Thus his days passed, tranquil and serene, with scarcely any other vicissitudes than those of the seasons, till they closed at a mature age on June 26, 1793.

Mr. White is known to the learned world by a very elegant publication “The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, in the county of Southampton. In a series of letters to the hon. Daines Barrington and Thomas Pennant, esq.” 1789, 4to. Mr. White’s idea of parochial history was, that it should consist of natural productions and occurrences, as well as antiquities. He has accordingly directed his attention to the former, and from a long series of obr servations made and repeated with care and skill, has enlarged our knowledge of natural history, and may be considered as no unequal successor of Ray and Derham. At the same time he has not neglected the antiquities of his favourite village, and in his history of the priory of Selborne has proved himself a very able antiquary. What renders the book more valuable than works of this kind generally are, is that it consists principally, if not entirely, of original matter, or information derived from records to which the public have no access. In 1713 a new edition of this work was published in a splendid form, with considerable additions, and the above brief memoir of the author’s life.

, an amiable and ingenious poet, untimely snatched from the world, was the second son of John and Mary White, and was born at Nottingham, March 21, 1785. From his third until his fifth year he learned to read at the school of a Mrs. Garrington, who had the good sense to perceive his extraordinary capacity, and spoke of what it promised with confidence. At a very early age his love oi reading was decidedly manifested, and was a passion to which every thing else gave way. When about six years old, he was placed under the rev. John Blanchard, who kept at that time the best school in Nottingham, and here he learned writing, arithmetic, and French. When he was about eleven, he one day wrote a separate theme for every boy in the class, which consisted of about twelve or fourteen. The master said he had never known them write so well upon any subject before, and could not refrain from expressing his astonishment at young White’s. It was considered as a great thing for him to be at so good a school, yet there were some circumstances which rendered it less advantageous to him than it might have been. Mrs. White had not yet overcome her husband’s intention of breeding him up to his own business (that of a butcher), and by an arrangement which took up too much of his time, one whole day in the week, and his leisure hours on the others, were employed in carrying the butcher’s basket. Some differences at length arose between his father and Mr. Blanchard, in consequence of which Henry was removed. It is remarkable that one of the ushers, when he came to receive the money due for tuition, represented to Mrs. White, either from stupidity or malice, what an incorrigible son she had, and that it was impossible to make the lad do any thing. This unfavourable impression, however, was soon removed by a Mr. Shipley, under whose care he was next placed, and who having discovered that he was a boy of quick perception, and very admirable talents, came with joy to relieve the anxiety and painful suspicions of his family. But while his school-masters were complaining that they could make nothing of him, he discovered what nature had made him, and wrote satires upon them. These pieces were never shewn to any, except his most particular friends, who say that they were pointed and severe, and it appears that he afterwards destroyed them.

About this time his mother was induced, by the advice of several friends, to open a lady’s boarding and day-school at Nottingham, her eldest daughter having previously been a teacher in one for some time. In this she succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations, and Henry’s home comforts were thus materially increased, though his family being still unable to give him an education suited to his talents, it was determined to breed him up to the hosiery trade. He was accordingly placed, at the age of fourteen, in a stocking-loom; but to this he had the greatest aversion, and his repeated remonstrances at length convinced his mother that he had a mind destined for nobler pursuits than the shining and folding up of stockings. He was consequently fixed in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, attornies and town-clerks of Nottingham. As no premium could be given with him he was engaged to serve two years before he was articled, so that though he entered this office when he was fifteen, he was not articled till the commencement of 1802. He now, at the suggestion of his employers, acquired at his leisure hours some kuowledge of Latin and. of Greek. He also made himself a. tolerable Italian scholar, and gained some acquaintance with both the Spanish and Portuguese. Among his occasional pursuits also were chemistry, astronomy, electricity, and music; but the law was his first object, to which his papers shew he had applied himself with such industry, as to make it wonderful that he could have found time, busied as his days were, for any thing else.

At a very early age, indeed soon after he was taken from school, he was ambitious of being admitted a member of a literary society then existing at Nottingham, but was objected to on account of his youth. After repeated attempts, and repeated failures, he succeeded in his wish, through the exertions of some of his friends; and in a very short time, to the great surprise of the society, proposed to give them a lecture, and the society, probably from curiosity, acceded to the proposal. The next evening they assembled, when he lectured upon genius, and spoke extempore for above two hours, in such a manner, that he received the unanimous thanks of the society, and they elected him their professor of literature. There are certain courts at Nottingham in which it is necessary for an attorney to plead and he wished to qualify himself for an eloquent speaker, as well as a sound lawyer.

Although assiduous in the study of his profession, he began now to be ambitious of an university education, that he might fit himself for the church. This did not proceed from any dislike to his profession, but a deafness, to which he had always been subject, and which appeared to grow progressively worse, and threatened to preclude all possibility of advancement. Another reason is assigned by his biographer, that his opinions, which had at one time inclined to Deism, had now taken a strong devotional turn. He had about this time written several poems in some of the literary journals, which were much admired by men of acknowledged taste, and their encouragement induced him to prepare a little volume of them for the press. It was his hope that this publication might either by the success of its sale, or the notice which it might excite, afford the means to prosecute his studies at college. It appeared accordingly in 1803.

The success of this volume appears to have been by no means adequate to its merits, and the author met with many other impediments and disappointments before his object was attained. At length Mr. Dashwood, a clergyman then residing at Nottingham, obtained for him an introduction to Mr. Simeon, of King’s college, Cambridge; and with this he was induced to go to Cambridge, his masters having previously consented to give up the remainder of his time. Mr. Simeon, from the recommendation which he received, and from the conversation he had with him, promised to procure for him a sizar’s place at St. John’s college, and, with the additional aid of a friend, to supply him with 30l. annually. His brother, Neville White, promised twenty and his mother, it was hoped, would be able to allow fifteen or twenty more. With this, it was thought, he could go through college.

He quitted his employers in October 1804. Mr. Simeon had advised him to degrade for a year, and place himself, during that time, under some scholar. He went accordingly to the rev. Mr. Grainger, of Winteririgham, in Lincolnshire, and there, notwithstanding all the intreaties of his friends, pursued such an unintermitting course of study as greatly injured his delicate and already undermined constitution. He frequently at this time studied fourteen hours a day; the progress which he made in twelve months was indeed astonishing; for when he went to Cambridge he was immediately as much distinguished for his classical knowledge as his genius; but the seeds of death were in him, and the place to which he had so long looked with hope, served unhappily as a hot-house to ripen them. During his first term, one of the university scholarships became vacant, and Henry, young as he was in college, and almost self-taught, was advised by those who were best able to estimate his chance of success, to offer himself as a competitor for it. He passed the whole term in preparing for this, but his strength sunk under the intenseness of his studies, and he was compelled to decline; and this was not the only misfortune. The general college examination came on; he was utterly unprepared to meet it; and believed that a failure here would have ruined his prospects for ever. He had only about a fortnight to read what other men had been the whole term reading. Once more he exerted himself beyond what his shattered health could bear: the disorder returned, and he went to his tutor Mr. Catton with tears in his eyes, and told him that he could not go into the hall to be examined. Mr. Catton, however, thought his success here of so much importance, that be exhorted him, with all possible earnestness, to hold out the six days of the examination. Strong medicines were given him, to enable him to support it, and he was pronounced the first man of his year. But life was the price which he was to pay for such honours as this. As he succeeded in gaining approbation, he became farther stimulated to studious exertions far beyond his strength, and when he returned to college in 1806, he was no longer a subject for medicine. His mind also was worn out, and it was the opinion of his medical attendants, that if he had recovered, his intellect would have been affected. In this state he died, Oct. 19, 1806, in the twenty-first year of his age.

Some notice of a young man, so extraordinary for genius and piety, could not be omitted in a work of this kind; yet with the best materials in our hands (his life by Mr. Southey) we found it impossible to give any abridgment that would, or indeed ought to be satisfactory. The present imperfect sketch, however, will not be wholly useless, if it detect but one reader ignorant of such a publication as “The Remains of Henry Kirke White.” We can otherwise have no occasion to recommend what has got such hold of the public mind, that after five or six large editions, there is still an encreasing demand. It is perhaps the most interesting biographical, epistolary, and poetical collection that has appeared for many years, and while it excites the warmest emotions of pity and sympathy, is equally calculated to convey instruction of the highest order.

, bishop of Winchester, was the son of Robert White, of Farnham in Surrey, and was born there in 1511. He was educated at Winchester school, and thence removed to New college, Oxford, of which he became perpetual fellow in 1527. In 1534 he completed his degrees in arts, and being esteemed for his classical knowledge, was about that time appointed master of Winchester school. He was soon after made warden of Winchester college, and appears to have been principally instrumental in saving it, when the adjoining college of St. Elizabeth, the site of which he purchased, and so many others, were utterly destroyed. He was in 1551 promoted to the rectory of Cheyton in that neighbourhood; but in the preceding year, being suspected of corresponding with persons abroad, who opposed king Edward’s proceedings, he was examined by the council, and committed to the tower. After continuing some months in confinement, he pretended compliance with the reformed religion, and was set at liberty. Such is Strype’s account; but the historian of Winchester says that he lay in prison till the reign of queen Mary. However this may be, it is certain that on her accession, he was in such favour, as a zealous Roman Catholic, that she promoted him in 1554 to the bishopric of Lincoln. In the following year he was incorporated D. D. at Oxford, and in 1557 was translated to the see of Winchester, which, on account of his predilection for his native county, appears to have been the object of his wishes. This dignity, however, was granted him upon condition of his paying 1000l. yearly, out of the revenue of his see, to cardinal Pole, who complained that the temporalities of Canterbury (of which he was then archbishop) were so ruined by his predecessor, that he could not live in a manner suitable to his rank.

On the accession of queen Elizabeth, bishop W T hite was deprived of his dignity, generally because he retained his attachment to the popish religion, but more particularly for his open contempt of the queen and the queen’s authority, on two remarkable occasions. The first was, when appointed to preach queen Mary’s funeral sermon, or oration. His text was, “Wherefore I praised the dead, which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive,” Eccles. iv. 2. In this sermon, after exhausting his powers of oratory in celebrating his saint of a mistress, whose knees he affirmed were hard with kneeling, he burst into a flood of tears Then, recovering himself, he said, “She has left a sister to succeed her, a lady of great worth also, whom we are now bound to obey, for melior est canis vivus leone mortuo (better is a live dog than a dead lion), and I hope so shall reign well and prosperously over us, but I must still say with my text, laudavi mortuos magis quam viventes (I praised the dead more than the living), for certain it is Maria optimam partem elegit (Mary hath chosen tfce better part).” It is easy to suppose that queen Elizabeth would not be much pleased with these complimentary innuendos. The other offence was of a more serious nature, for at the public disputation in Westminster Abbey, with some of the reformers in 1558, he even threatened the queen with excommunication. He was therefore committed to the tower in 1559, after he had appeared in public, though deprived, in his pontifical vestments. His health afterwards declining, he was released, and permitted to retire to his sister’s house at South Warnborough, where he died Jan. 11, 1560, and was interred, agreeably to his will, in Winchester cathedral.

White was a benefactor to both Wykeham’s colleges, and was a man of learning and eloquence, and no inelegant Latin poet, as appears by his “Diacosio-martyrion, sive ducentorum virorum testimonia de veritate corporis et sanguinis Christi in eucharista, adversus Petrum Martyrem,” Lond. 1553, 1554, 4to. He was the author also of “Epigrammatum lib. I.” “Carmina in matrimon. Philippi Regis, cum Maria Regina Anglise,” (See Holingshed’s Chron. 111. 1120); and the memorable “Sermon preached at the funeral of queen Mary, Dec. 13, 1558,” a ms. now in the British Museum, and printed in Strype’s Memorials, but from an incorrect copy. There are many of his orations, &c. preserved in Fox’s Acts and Monuments.

, a nonconformist lawyer, and commonly called, from his principal publication, Century White, was the son of Henry White of Heylan in Pembrokeshire, where he was born June 29, 1590. He was educated in grammar learning at home, and about 1607 entered of Jesus college, Oxford, and after studying there between three and four years, went to the Middle Temple, and in due time was admitted to the bar, was summer reader 17 Car. I. and at length a bencher of that society. While a barrister he was much employed by the puritans in the purchase of impropriations, which were to be given to those of their own party; for which he received such a censure in the starchamber, as served to confirm the aversion he had already conceived against the hierarchy. In 1640, he was chosen member of parliament for the borough of Southwark, joined in all the proceedings which led to the overthrow of the church, was appointed chairman of the committee for religion, and a member of the assembly of divines. He did not however live to see the consequences of all those measures, but, as Wood says, “very unwillingly submitted to the stroke of death,” Jan. 29, 1644-5, and was buried in the Temple church. A marble stone was afterwards placed over his grave, with these lines,

Wood, who has accumulated all the party scandal of the day against White, some of which, for aught we know, may be true, informs us that two of his speeches only were published, and a pamphlet called “The Looking-glass:” but his most curious publication was that entitled “The First Century of scandalous, malignant Priests, made and admitted into benefices by the Prelates, in whose hands the ordination of ministers and government of the church hath been; or a narration of the causes for which the Parliament hath ordered the sequestration of the benefices of several ministers complained of before them, for vitiousnesse of life, errors in doctrine, contrary to the articles of our religion, and for practising and pressing superstitious innovations againt law, and for malignancy against the parliament,” 1643, 4to. Neal says this was published in order to “silence the clamours of the royalists, and justify the severe proceedings of the (parliamentary) committees;” but it will not be thought any very convincing justification of these committees, that, out of eight thousand clergymen whom they ejected from their livings, about an hundred might be found who deserved the punishment. And even this is a great proportion, for out of this hundred, it is evident that a considerable number suffered for what was called malig-. nancy, another name for loyalty. White promised a second century, but either was not able to find sufficient materials, or was dissuaded by his party, who did not approve of such a collection of scandal.

, a puritan divine, and, Wood says, usually called the Patriarch Of Dorchester, was born in the latter end of December, 1574, at Stanton St. John, in Oxfordshire. He was sent for education to Winchester school, and after two years of probation, was admitted perpetual fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1595. Here he took his degrees in arts, was admitted into holy orders, and became a frequent preacher in, or near Oxford. In 1606 he became rector of Trinity church, Dorchester, in the county of Dorset, where in the course of his ministry he expounded the whole of the scripture, and went through about half of it a second time, having, says Wood, “an excellent faculty in the clear and solid interpreting of it.”

About 1624, Mr. White, with some of his friends, projected the new colony of Massachusetts in New England, and, after surmounting many difficulties, succeeded in obtaining a patent. The object was to provide a settlement or asylum for those who could not conform to the church discipline and ceremonies. He himself appears to have been inclined to the same disaffection, and is said to have been in 1630 prosecuted by archbishop Laud in the high commission court for preaching against Arminianism and the ceremonies. But as no account exisjs of the issue of this trial, or of his having been at all a sufferer upon this account, it is more probable, or at least as probable, that Wood is right, who tells us that he conformed as well after, as before, the advancement of Laud. Afterwards indeed he was a sufferer during the rage of civil war; for a party of horse in the neighbourhood of Dorchester, under the command of prince Rupert, plundered his house, and carried away his library. On this occasion he made his escape to London, and was made minister of the Savoy. In 1640 he was appointed one of the learned divines to assist in a committee of religion, appointed by the House of Lords; and in 1643 was chosen one of the Westminster assembly of divines. In 1645 he was appointed to succeed the ejected Dr. Featley as rector of Lambeth, and the doctor’s library was committed to his care, until his own should be returned which was carried away by prince Rupert’s soldiers. In 1647 he was offered the wardenship of New college, but refused it, and as soon as he could, returned to his people at Dorchester, for whom he had the greatest affection, and where he had passed the happiest of his days, being a man of great zeal, activity, and learning, and, as Wood allows, a “most moderate puritan.” Fuller says, “he was a constant preacher, and by his wisdom and ministerial labours, Dorchester was much enriched with knowledge, piety, and industry.” He died there suddenly, July 21, 1648, in the seventy-second year of his age. His works are but few, 1. “A commentary upon the first three chapters of Genesis,” 1656, fol. 2. “A way to the tree of life, discovered in sundry directions for the profitable reading of the Scriptures,” &c. 1647, 8vo. 3. “A digression concerning the morality of the Fourth commandment,” printed with the preceding. He published also a few sermons.

, an eminent Oriental scholar, canon of Christ Church, Regius professor of Hebrew, and Laudian professor of Arabic in the university of Oxford, was born in 1746, of parents in low circumstances in Gloucester, where his father was a journeyman-weaver, and brought up his son to the same business. Being however a sensible man, he gave him what little learning was in his power at one of the charity-schools at Gloucester. This excited a thirst for greater acquisitions in the young man, who employed all the time he could spare in the study of such books as fell in his way. His attainments at length attracted the notice of a neighbouring gentleman of fortune, who sent him to the university of Oxford, where he was entered of Wadham college. He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 19, 1773; and about that time engaged in the study of the Oriental languages, to which he was induced by the particular recommendation of Dr. Moore, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He had before acquired a tolerable share of Hebrew learning, by which his progress in the other Oriental languages was greatly facilitated. In 1775, he was appointed archbishop Laud’s professor of Arabic; on entering upon which office he pronounced a masterly oration, which was soon afterwards printed with the title of f ' De Utilitate Ling. Arab, in Studiis Theologicis, Oratio habita Oxoniis in Schola Linguarum, vii Id. Aprilis, 1775,“4to. He was at this time fellow of his college, being elected in 1774. In 1778, Mr. White printed the Syriac Philoxenian version of the Four Gospels (the ms. of which Dr. Gloster Ridley had given to New college), entitled, <c Sacrorum Evangeliorum Versio Syriaca Philoxeniana, ex Codd. Mss. Ridleianis in Bibl. Coll. Nov. Oxon. repositis, nunc primum edita, cum Interpretatione et Annotationibus Josephi White,” &c. 2 vols. 4to. On November 15, 1778, he preached a very ingenious and elegant sermon before the university, which was soon afterwards printed, under the title of “A revisal of the English translation of the Old Testament recommended. To which is added, some account of an antient Syriac translation of great part of Origen’s Hexaplar edition of the LXX. lately discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan,” 4to. About this time he was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall chapel. In 1779, he took the degree of bachelor of divinity; and in the same year published “A Letter to the bishop of London, suggesting a plan for a new edition of the LXX; to which are added, Specimens of some inedited versions made from the Greek, and a Sketch of a Chart of Greek Mss.” In 1780, Mr. White published, “A Specimen of the Civil and Military Institutes of Tjmour, or Tamerlane; a work written originally by that celebrated Conqueror in the Magul language, and since translated into Persian. Now first rendered from the Persian into English, from a ms. in the possession of William Hunter, M.D.; with other Pieces,” 4to. The whole of this work appeared in 1783, translated into English by major Davy, with Preface, Indexes, Geographical Notes, &c. by Mr. White, in one volume, 4to. In Easter term, 1783, he was appointed to preach the Bampton lecture for the following year. As soon as he was nominated, he sketched out the plan; and finding assistance necessary to the completion of it in such a manner as he wished, called to his aid Mr. Samuel Baclcork and Dr. Parr. Although his own share of these labours was sufficient to entitle him to the celebrity which they procured him, he bad afterwards to lament that he had not acknowledged his obligations to those elegant scholars, in a preface to the volume, when it was published. As soon as the lectures were delivered, the applause with which they were received was general throughout the university. They were printed the same year, and met with universal approbation. A second edition appeared in 1785; to which the author added a sermon, which he had recently preached before the university, on the necessity of propagating Christianity in the East Indies. Mr. White’s reputation was now established, and he was considered as one of the ablest vindicators of the Christian doctrines which modern times had witnessed. Lord Thnrlow, then lord chancellor, without any solicitation, gave him a prebend in the cathedral of Gloucester, which at once placed him in easy and independent circumstances. In 1787 he took his degree of D. D. and was looked up to with the greatest respect in the university, as one of its chief ornaments. In the year 1788, the death of Mr.Badcock was made the pretence for an attack on Dr. White’s character both as an author and a man, by the late Dr. R. B. Gabriel, who published a pamphlet, entitled, “Facts relating to the Rev. Dr. White’s Bampton Lectures.” By this it appears that there was found among the papers of the deceased Mr. Badcock, a promissory note for 500l. from Dr. White for literary aid; the payment of which was demanded, but refused by him on the ground that it was illegal in the first instance, as not having the words “value received,' 7 and, secondly, it was for service to be rendered in the History of Egypt, which the doctor and Mr. Badcock had projected. The friends of the deceased, however, were of a different opinion; and the doctor consented to liquidate the debt. This he informs us he did,” partly because he apprehended that his persisting to refuse the payment of it might tend to the disclosure of the assistance which Mr. Badcock had given him in the Bampton Lectures; and partly, because he was informed that the note, by Mr. Badcock’s death, became a part of his assets, and, as such, could legally be demanded.“But whoever reads Dr. White’s” Statement of Literary Obligations“must be convinced that he was under no obligation to have paid this money, and that his opponents availed themselves of his simplicity and the alarm which they excited for his literary character. Gabriel, however, a man neither of literary talents or character, was at the head of an envious junto who were determined to injure Dr.White if they could; and notwithstanding his payment of the money, printed all Mr, Badcock’s letters in the above pamphlet, in order, as he said, to vindicate the character of the deceased, as well as his own, both of which he ridiculously pretended had been assailed on this occasion. In consequence of this publication, Dr. White printed” A Statement of his Literary Obligations to the Rev. Mr. Samuel Badcock, and the Rev. Samuel Parr, LL.D,“By this it appeared, that, though Mr. Badcock’s share in the Lectures was considerable, yet that it was not in that proportion which had been maliciously represented, the plan of the whole, and the execution of the greatest part, being Dr. White’s, and Dr. Parr’s being principally literal corrections. This statement gave sufficient satisfaction to the literary world at large. But the malice of his enemy was not yet satiated, as may appear by the following correspondence, which having been circulated chiefly at Oxford, may be here recorded as an additional defence of Dr. White. ”A printed paper, entitled ‘Minutes of what passed at three interviews which lately took place between Dr. White and Dr. Gabriel in London and in Bath,’ and signed

“To the Rev. Mr. Stafford Smith, Prior Park, Bath. “Dear Sir, Oxford, Feb. 12, 1790. “In a pamphlet now in circulation at Oxford, signed by Dr. Gabriel and Dr. Falconer, I am astonished to read the following passages:

‘The same morning the Rev. Stafford Smith, of Prior park, came to Dr. Gabriel’s, and desired to see Dr. White, who retired with him and Dr. Gabriel into his study. Dr. Gabriel soon returned, and desired Mr. Ph. Smyth, Dr. White’s friend, to go into his study, to bear witness to a charge made against Dr. White by Mr. Stafford Smith, to which Dr. Gabriel did not chuse to bear witness alone; Mr. Ph. Smyth accordingly went. They soon returned into the parlour, where Dr. Falconer was, and Mr. S. Smith accompanied them where Mr. S. Smith pressed Dr. White on the subject of a letter written by Dr. White to Mr. Badcock, in which Mr. S. Smith’s name was introduced; and purporting that Mr. S. Smith had written to Dr. White to compose a sermon for him, for which Mr. S. Smith insisted on making Dr. White a compliment of a 10l. note. This letter expressed a wish, that as Dr. White had not leisure fo write the sermon himself, being so busy with Abdollatif, Mr. Badcock would be so obliging as to send him some thoughts on the subject, and that Mr. Badcock would do him the honour of accepting the 10l. note, said to be offered by Mr. Smith; who then in Dr. White’s presence, and in the presence of Mr. Ph. Smyth, Dr. Falconer, and Dr. Gabriel, asserted the whole of the letter, so far as his name was concerned in it, to be an Absolute Falsehood! In answer to which Dr. White immediately said, “I beg pardon before you, Gentlemen, of Mr. Stafford Smith;—I am willing to make any apology to him. I acknowledge the letter to be of my handwriting, and thai it is entirely void of truth and destitute of foundation; and he repeatedly said, I confess with shame that the whole is a direct falsehood, and I take shame to myself upon it.”

‘Dr. White requested of Dr. Gabriel that this letter might not be published, but Dr. Gabriel would give no promise. Dr. White then desired that Mr. S. Smith’s name might be omitted, if he should publish the letter. Dr. Gabriel replied that he would make no promise whatever; that Mr. $. Smith was a friend of his; and Dr. Gabriel addressed himself particularly to Mr. S. Smith, when he said that Mr. S. Smith need entertain no fears from his conduct;—that it was not his intention to publish it, unless he should be pressed, and find it necessary. Mr. S. Smith then took leave, but not without expressing great satisfaction that he liad embraced, by Dr. Gabriel’s advice, so favourable an opportunity of vindicating himself from the indirect charge which Dr. White had brought against him, and of detecting the falsity of it; and Mr. S. Smith expressed his thanks to Dr. Gabriel for the friendly part Dr. G. had acted with respect to him in this extraordinary transaction!’

“The inference which every body must draw from these passages is, that you never did receive the sermon in question, and that I wantonly and wickedly made use of your name in order to procure it from Mr. Badcock for some other purpose. As you well know that 1 really sent you the aermon, I trust that 1 shall find in your candour a refuge from a misrepresentation at once so unexpected and so fatal. I trust that you will readily and explicitly acknowledge that you really asked and received the sermon from me; and that the apology I made to you, and which I shall ever be willing to repeat, related solely to the unjustifiable discovery of your name to Mr. Badcock, to the account I gave him of your application to me for the sermon, and of the sum which I said you had offered me.

“The fairness and moderation with which you heard my apology at Dr. Gabriel’s confirm me in the hope that you will instantly, and by return of post, afford me an opportunity of vindicating my conduct so far as it admits of vindication; and that I shall not be compelled to produce other evidence, which, though equally convincing, it would much distress me to use. This you will readily believe, when you recollect how anxiously I contended at Dr. Gabriel’s, and contended I thought successfully, for the observance of the most inviolable secrecy with respect to your name. That Dr. Gabriel and Dr. Falconer should thus have made use of it distresses me not less on your account than on my own.

“The urgency of the case must plead my excuse for reqaesting once more an immediate and explicit answer.

“I was as much astonished and disgusted too as you could be on reading the rhapsody, abounding with spleen, and ridiculously circumstantial, which seems by your letter, received late last night, to have given you so much concern. The author of it has treated you ill, by relating disingenuously the transaction you refer to, and me by making so flippant a use of my name, not only without my consent, but against my earnest desire, as well as his own positive promise. When the doughty Doctor asked me, somewhat abruptly, in the Concert Room, whether I had ever paid Professor White 10l. for writing a sermon for me, I expressed my surprise at the question, and in part denied the fact, acquainting him at the same time with the true state of the case, as well as I could recollect it, which I will now repeat for your satisfaction. You was with me at this place when I received a note from a friend at Bath urging me to preach a sermon on a public occasion then so near at hand that I expressed some doubt whether I should have time to be properly prepared for it. You immediately made ( me ah offer of assistance, which I readily accepted', andt would accept such an offer again and again under similar circumstances. The assistance came to me by post, and though it consisted of only a few trite pages, and proved of little use to me, yet it was more in quantity than I happened to want, and the promise of it afforded you sufficient ground for saying that you stood engaged to furnish me with a sermon. In regard to the 10l. your candid and unequivocal acknowledgment of that mysterious and very culpable falsehood was considered by me as a reasonable atonement for it; and I know not what right any one else had to concern himself about the matter. The interposition of a third person was malicious and pragmatical. You thought yourself indebted to me for some little services I had rendered you, which you have always spoke of with a sensibility that did you honour and you probably meant in this instance, the only one that ever occurred, to make me some compensation for it.

“When I had related the particulars of the case to Dr. G. in the Concert Room, he, with more rancour than discretion or humanity, urged the necessity of my meeting you at his house the next day, and requiring an apology for what you had written to your supposed friend on this subject. I at first objected to this proposal, and endeavoured to convince Dr. G. that as the affair in question was so trifling in itself, and had nothing to do with the charges he had brought against you, it was most prudent and most generous to let it drop. This remonstrance, however, and some others, appearing to have no weight with him, I considered that if I should persist in declining to confront you, the matter would not rest there, but might be represented to my disadvantage, and that I might by an interview prevent its being a town-talk, and likewise soften Dr. G's unprovoked and wanton acrimony: all which I attempted when I received your apology, with what you call fairness and moderation. I now declare that the apology, and the manner in which it was offered, was handsome and liberal on your part; that it ‘referred solely to your having made an unwarrantable discovery of my name to Mr. Badcock— to the account you gave him of my application to you for the sermon—and of the sum which you said I had offered you.’

“And now, Sir, while you are battling it on one side, and your Adversary on the other, I am the only person perhaps who has been confessedly abused on both sides. On this footing (any other might be impertinent) I presume to advise that you will take no further notice of what has been said against you than to shew the world how little you deserve it, by publishing another volume of sermons with all convenient dispatch. Sed vereor ne improbè dicam— for—Who shall decide when Doctors disagree?’

“I am, Sir, your friend and humble servant,

“Though I cannot forbear to resent the having been dragged into public notice by means of a controversy which has so manifestly a mischievous tendency in every view of it, yet you are at liberty to make any use of this letter (written in haste to gratify your excessive impatience) which may serve to expose malevolence and justify your conduct.” About the same year, 1790, in which these transactions occurred, the professor vacated his fellowship by marriage, and accepted of a college living, the rectory of Melton, in Suffolk, on which he resided during a considerable part of the year. In 1800, appeared his “Diatessaron, sive integra historia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Grsece,” &c. 8vo. This was founded on the “Harmony” of archbishop Newcome, and is elegantly printed on a type cast originally under the direction of the professor. In 1801, he published his “Ægyptiaca or Observations on certain. Antiquities of Egypt. In two parts I. The History of Pompey’s Pillar elucidated. 2. Abdollatif’s Account of the Antiquities of Egypt> written in Arabic, A. D. 1206. Translated into English, and illustrated with Notes.” 4to. This is perhaps, as to research and learning, the most profound of his works on the subject of antiquity.

Dr. White’s next publication was an edition of the Greek Testament, “Novum Testamentum, Greece. Lectiones variantes, Griesbachii judicio, iis quas Textus receptus exhibet, anteponendas vel eequiparandas, adjecit Josephus White,” &c. 2 vols. cr. 8vo, 1808. This edition is particularly valuable for the ready and intelligible view it affords, first, of all the texts which in Griesbach’s opinion ought either certainly or probably to be removed from the received text; secondly, of those various readings which the same editor judged either preferable or equal to those of the received text; thirdly, of those additions which, ou the authority of manuscripts Griesbach considers as fit to be admitted into the text. From this Dr. White observes that it may be seen at once by every one how very little, after all the labours of learned men, and the collation of so many manuscripts, is liable to just objection in the received text. As a kind of sequel, and printed in the same form, he published in 1811, “C risers Griesbachianse in. Novum Testamentum Synopsis,” partly with a view to familiarize the results of Griesbach’s laborious work, by removing from them the obscurity of abbreviations, but principally, as he says himself, to demonstrate, by a short and easy proof, how safe and pure the text of the New Testament is, in the received editions, in all things that affect our faith or duty, and how few alterations it either requires or will admit, on any sound principles of criticism.

This was the last of Dr. White’s publications. His constitution had now suffered much by a paralytic attack, which interrupted his studies, although he continued at intervals his favourite researches. He died at his canonry residence at Christchurch, May 22, 1814. From the number of works Dr. White published, and the assiduity with which he cultivated most branches of learning, particularly Oriental languages and antiquities, it may be thought improbable that there was a considerable portion of indolence in his habit. Yet this certainly was the case, and, in the opinion of his friends, must account for his needing assistance in the composition of his Bampton Lectures. Even in the composition of a single sermon, he was glad to accept of aid, if ife was wanted at a time when he felt a repugnance to study. In his private character, he united a degree of roughness with great simplicity of manners; few men were ever more deficient in what is called knowledge of the world. Yet he was friendly, liberal, and of great integrity. He owed all he had to his talents and fame, and however grateful he might be for favours, he never knew or practised the arts of solicitation. To his parents, after he attained promotion, he was a most dutiful son, and it is yet remembered at Gloucester, with what eagerness he left his dignified friends on the day he was installed prebendary, to embrace his aged father, who stood looking on among the crowd.

, an English historian, was born at Basingstoke, in Hampshire, of the great part of which place his ancestors had been proprietors. He was educated at Winchester school, whence he was admitted fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1557. In the beginning of queen Elizabeth’s reign he obtained leave of absence for a set time, but his attachment to the Roman catholic religion being discovered, his fellowship was declared void, in 1564. He had gone abroad, and after Remaining some time at Louvain, settled at Padua, where he studied the canon and civil law, and received his doctor’s decree in both those faculties. Afterwards, being invited to Douay, he was made regius professor, and taught civil and canon law nearly twenty years. The universityappointed him their chancellor, or rector magnificus, not only on account of his own merit, but in consequence of the particular recommendation of the pope. At length he was created count palatine, a title conferred by the emperor upon lawyers that have distinguished themselves in their profession. He had married two wives, by both of whom he had fortunes, and when the last died, being desirous of entering into the church, he obtained a dispensation from the pope for that purpose. He was now ordained priest, and made a canon of St. Peter’s church, in Douay. He died in 1612, and was buried in St. James’s hurch, the cemetery of most of the English catholics.

Besides his skill in the law, he is said to have been an able antiquary, and in this character is chiefly known by his “Historiarum Britannise insulae ab origine mundi ad ann. Dom. octingentesimum, libri noveui,” Douay, 1602. The object of this history, according to Nicolson, is to assert the rights of the papacy in this kingdom; and therefore, having settled religion by Augustine, the monk, and other emissaries, he ends his story in the year 800, He is said to have been first noticed by the learned world for the explanation he gave of the well-known enigmatical epitaph near Bononia in Italy. This he published under the title of “Ælia Laelia Crispis. Epitaphium antiquum in agro Bononiensi adhuc videtur a diversis interpretation varienovissime autem a Richardo Vjto Basingstochio, amicorum precibus explicatum.” Padua, 4to, 1568. Two other publications are attributed to him, “Orationes quinque,” 1596, 8vo, which was read as a classic at Winchester school; “Notse ad leges Decemvirorum in xii tabulas,” 159.7, 8vo; “Explicatio brevis privilegiorum juris et consuetudinis circa ven. sacramentum eucharistiae,” Douay, 1609, 8vo; and “De reliquiis et veneratione Sanctorum,” ibid. 1609. It is said there is a tenth and eleventh book of his history in existence, a copy of which was in Mr. West’s Catalogue.

, an eminent engraver, was born in London in 1645, and became the disciple of David Loggan, for whom he drew and engraved many architectural views. He applied himself mostly to the drawing of portraits, in black lead upon vellum; and his success in taking likenesses procured him much applause. His drawings are said to have been much superior to his prints. He drew the portraits of sir Godfrey Kneller and his brother, and sir Godfrey thought so well of them, that he painted White’s portrait in return. White’s portrait of sir Godfrey is in Sandrart’s Lives of the painters. In 1674, which is two years before Burghers was employed on the “Oxford Almanack,” White produced the first of that series. For the generality of his portraits for books, which are, however, generally disfigured by the broad borders that were then the fashion, he received at the rate of four pounds each, with the occasional addition of ten shillings; thirty pounds, which was paid hirn by Mr. Sowters of Exeter for a portrait of the king of Sweden (which was probably of much larger dimensions), has been spoken of as an extraordinary price. So great, however, is,the number of his engravings, that in the course of forty years he saved from four to five thousand pounds; and yet, say his biographers, by some misfortune or sudden extravagance, he died in indigent circumstances at his house in Bloomsbury in 1704.

Of his own works he made no regular collection, but when he had done a plate, rolled up two or three proofs, and flung them into a closet, where they were found in heaps. Many of these proofs may now be found in the collections of those curious persons who take Granger for their guide. The plates which he had by him were, after his decease, sold to a printseller in the Poultry, who in a few years, according to lord Orford and Mr. Strutt, enriched himself by the purchase. The number of his portraits, of which Vertue has collected the names, are two hundred and seventy - five, of which two are scraped in mezzotinto, and all the rest engraved in lines. Some few of Robert White’s plates are finished by his son George, who chiefly practised in mezzotinto, but engraved a few plates in lines, of which the principal one is a large portrait of “James Gardiner,” bishop of Lincoln.

, founder of St. John’s college Oxford, was born at Reading in 1492, the son of William White, a native of Rickmansworth, by Mary, daughter of John Kiblewhite of South Fawley in Berkshire. His father carried on the business of a clothier, for some time, at Rickmansworth, but removed to Reading, before our founder was born. The former circumstance has given rise to the mistake of Fuller, Chauncey, and Pennant, who say that he was born at Rickmansworth. But this was rectified by Griffin Higgs, a member of this college, and afterwards fellow of Merton, in his Latin memoir of the founder. Hearne appears to have been of the same opinion.

He is said to have been educated at Reading, but probably only in the elements of writing and arithmetic, as at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a tradesman or merchant of London. His apprenticeship- lasted ten years during which he behaved so well that his master, at his death, left him an hundred pounds. With this, and the patrimony bequeathed by his father, who died in 1523, he commenced business on his own account, and in a few years rose to wealth and honours, and became distinguished by acts of munificence. In 1542 he gave to the corporation of Coventry 1000l. which, with 400l. of their own, was laid out ifi the purchase of lands, from/ the rents of which provision was made for twelve poor men, and a sum raised to be lent to industrious young men of Coventry. This estate in 1705 yielded 930l. yearly. He gave also to the mayor and corporation of Bristol, by deed, the sum of 2000l. and the same to the town of Leicester, to purchase estates, and raise a fund from which sums of money might be lent to industrious tradesmen,- not only of those but of other places specified, which were to receive the benefits of the fund in rotation, and by the same the poor were to be relieved in times of scarcity. These funds are now in a most prosperous state, and judiciously administered.

Sir Thomas White was sheriff of London in 1546, and lord mayor in 1553, when he was knighted by queen Mary for his services, in preserving the peace of the city during the rebellion of sir Thomas Wyatt. Of the rest of his history, or personal character, sentiments, and pursuits, no particulars have been recovered, except what may be inferred from his many and wise acts of liberality. He must have been no common man who showed the first example of devoting the profits of trade to the advancement of learning. He died at Oxford, Feb. 11, 1566, in the seventysecond year of his age, and was buried in the chapel of his college.

Some accounts relate that toward the latter-end of his life he fell into extreme poverty, a circumstance, Mr. Coates observes, that seems very improbable, as, by his will, he left 400 marks to his widow, and 3000l. to St. John’s, with legacies to the children of his brother Ralph, and the Merchant Taylors’ Company of which he was a member, to a considerable amount.

He was twice married; first to a lady whose name was Avisia or Avis, but whose family is unknown. She died in 1557 without issue, and was buried, with great pomp and ceremony, in the parish church of St. Mary Aldermanbury. His second wife was Joan, one of the daughters and coheiresses of John Lake of London, gent, the widow of sir Ralph Warren, knight, twice lord mayor of London, by whom she had children. She survived sir Thomas, and died in 1573, and was buried by her first husband in the church of St. Bennet Sherehog, London. There is a portrait of him in the town-hall of Leicester, habited as lord mayor of London, with a gold chain, and collar of S S. a black cap, pointed beard, his gloves in his right hand, and on the little finger of his left, a ring. There are similar portraits in the town-hall at Salisbury, at Reading, Merchant Taylors’, and St. John’s college.

At what time he first projected the foundation of a college is not known. His original intention was to have founded it at Reading, but he relinquished tliatin favour of Oxford, and on May 1, 1555, obtained a licence from Philip and Mary, empowering him, to the praise and honour of God, the Virgin Mary, and St. John Baptist, to found a college, for divinity, philosophy, and the arts; the members to be, a president, thirty scholars, graduate or non-graduate, or more or less as might be appointed in the statutes; and the site to be Bernard-college, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, without the north-gate of the city of Oxford, and to be called St. John Baptist college in the university of Oxford.

St. Bernard’s college was founded by archbishop Chichele for scholars of the Cistertian order who might wish to study in Oxford, but had no place belonging to their order in which they could associate together, and be relieved from the inconveniencies of separation in halls and inns, where they could not keep up their peculiar customs and statutes. On representing this to the king, Henry VI. he granted letters patent, dated March 20, 1437, giving the archbishop leave to erect a college to the honour of the Virgin Mary and St. Bernard in Northgate-street, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, on ground containing about five acres, which he held of the king in capite. According to Wood, quoted by Stevens, it was built much in the same manner as All Souls college, but the part they inhabited was only the front, and the south-side of the first court, as the hall, &c. was not built till 1502, nor the chapel completed and consecrated until 1530. Their whole premises at the dissolution were estimated at only two acres, and to be worth, if let to farm, only twenty-shillings yearly, but as the change of owners was compulsory, we are not to wonder at this under-valuation. It was granted by Henry VIII. to Christ-church, from whence it came to sir Thomas White, who obtained from Christ-church a grant of the premises, May 25, by paying twenty shillings yearly for it, and they covenanted with him that he should chuse his first president from the canons or students of Christ-church, and that afterwards the fellows of St. John’s should chuse a president from their own number, or from Christ-churcb, to be admitted and established by the dean and chapter, or in their absence by the chancellor or vice-chancellor of Oxford; and they farther wished to covenant that the dean and chapter should be visitors of the new college. With some reluctance, and by the persuasion of his friend. Alexander Belsire, canon of Christ-church, and first president, Sir Thomas was induced to consent to these terms, but the last article respecting the visitor must have been withdrawn, as he appointed sir William Cordall, master of the Rolls, visitor for life; and the right of visitation was afterwards conferred on the bishops of Winchester.

In the same year, May 29, 1555, sir Thomas, by virtue of his licence, established his college, and his first society consisted of Alexander Belsire, B. D. and canon of Christchurch, president; Ralph Wynclon, Edward Chanabre, and Henry D'Awbeney, masters of arts, scholars. For their maintenance he endowed the house with 36l. yearly, due to him from the city of Coventry, and with various manors, estates, and advowsons in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. In 1557 he obtained of Philip and Mary another charter, dated March 5, in which he made considerable additions to the endowment, and specified theology, philosophy, canon and the civil law, and the arts, as the studies to be pursued.

He next gave them a body of statutes, which are supposed to have been drawn up by sir William Cordall, by the founder’s desire, and were taken, as to substance, from, the statutes of New-college. According to these, the society was limited to a president, fifty fellows and scholars, of whom twelve were to study law, three chaplains, three clerks, and six choristers; but the chaplains, clerks, and choristers were discontinued in 1577, owing to a decrease of the funds for their maintenance. Of the fifty fellows, two were to be chosen from Coventry, two from Bristol, two from Reading, and one from Tunbridge the remaining forty- three from Merchant Taylors’ school, London, out of which number six fellowships are reserved for the kindred of the founder.

About this time he enlarged the bounds of the college by the purchase of about four acres, which were inclosed by a wall, by the benefaction of Edward Sprot, LL.B. sometime fellow, who died Aug. 25, 1612. This is commemorated by an inscription over the president’s garden-­door, “Edvardus Sprot hujus Coll. Socius, hunc murum suis impensis struxit, 1613.” It has already been noticed that the founder left by will 3000l. for the purchase of more lands. On the 17th December 1565, the college was admitted a member of the university, and the society declared partakers of all the privileges enjoyed by other colleges or societies. In 1576, the college purchased the ground before the gate from sir Christopher Brome, knt. lord of Northgate hundred, and enclosed it by a dwarf wall and row of elms, some of which are still standing.

, founder of Sion college, London, the.son of John White, was born in Temple parish, in the city of Bristol. His family was a branch of the Whites of Bedfordshire. He was entered of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, about 1566, took his degrees in arts, was ordained, and became a noted and frequent preacher. He afterwards settled in London, where he had the living of St. Gregory’s, near St. Paul’s, and in 1575 was made vicar of St. Dunstan’s, Fleet-street, where his pulpit services were much admired. In 1584 he was licensed to proceed in divinity, and commenced doctor in that faculty. In 1588 he had the prebend of Mora/ in the church of St. Paul, conferred upon him, and in 1590 was made treasurer of the church of Sarum by the queen’s letters. In 1591 he was made canon of Christ Church, and in 1593, canon of Windsor. He died March 1, 1623-4, according to Reading, but Wood says 1622-3; and was buried in the chancel of St. DunStan’s church. In his will he ordered a grave-stone to be placed over his remains, with a short inscription, but this was either neglected, or has been destroyed. As soon as an account of his death arrived at Oxford, the heads of the university, in honour of his memory as a benefactor, appointed Mr. Price, trie first reader of the moral philosophy lecture, to deliver an oration, which, with several encomiastic verses by other members of the university, was printed under the title of “Schola Moralis Philosophise Oxon. in funere Whiti pullata,” Oxon. 1624, 4to.

Dr. White published, 1. “Two Sermons at St. Paul’s in the lime of the Plague,” 8vo. 2. “Funeral Sermon on sir Henry Sidney,” Lond. 1586, 8vo. 3. “Sermon at St. Paul’s Cross on the queen’s day (Nov. 17) 1589,” ibid. 1589, 8vo. But his memory Js chiefly to be venerated for his works of charity, and his liberal encouragement of learning. In 1613 he built an hospital in Temple parish, Bristol, endowing it with 92l. per ann. He also founded the moral philosophy lecture at Oxford, for the maintenance of which he gave the manor of Langdon Hills, in the county of Essex, which was conveyed by him to the university, under the form of a purchase, by his deed enrolled, bearing date June 2.0, 1621. Out of the revenues of this manor, besides an anriuttl stipend of 100l. to the philosophy lecturer, he appointed several sums to be paid to other uses as, to Christ Church library to the Tuesday’s preachers of the university to the Easter sermons to the prisoners in the castle, &c. He founded also small exhibitions for four poor scholars, and for five divinity students of Magdalen Hall, most of which are still continued. But his greatest benefaction was to Sion college. He directed in his will that 3000l. should be applied in building a college and alms-house on the ruins of Elsynge priory, London- wall. His executors accordingly purchased the site of this priory for 2,450l. and erected Sion college. The charters of incorporation are dated July 3, 6 Charles I. and June 20, 16 Charles II. By these authorities, a president, two deatis, and four assistants, with all the rectors, vicars, &c. of the city of London and suburbs, were constituted a corporation. At the same time, alms-houses for ten men, and as many women, were established. Dr. White had appropriated by will separate funds for the maintenance of these poor people. The library, now the most copious in the city of London, was principally the foundation of the rev. Thomas Wood, rector of St. Michael’s, Crooked-lane. Dr. White left his own library to the dean and canons of Windsor.

, an English philosopher, and Roman catholic priest, who obtained considerable celebrity abroad, where he was usually called Thomas Anglus, or Thomas Albius, was the son of Richard White, esq. of Hatton, in the county of Essex, by Mary, his wife, daughter of Edmund Plowden, the celebrated lawyer in queen Elizabeth’s reign. His parents being Roman catholics, he was educated, probably abroad, in the strictest principles of that profession, and at length became a secular priest, in which character he resided very much abroad. He was principal of the college at Lisbon, and sub-principal of that at Douay; but his longest stay was at Rome and Paris. For a considerable time he lived in the house of sir Kenelm Digby; and he shewed his attachment to that gentleman’s philosophy by various publications. His first work of this kind was printed at Lyons, in 1646. It is entitled “Institutionum Peripateticarum ad mentem summi clarissimique Philosophi Kenelmi Equitis Digbaei.” “Institutions of the Peripatetic Philosophy, according to the hypothesis of the great and celebrated philosopher sir Kenelm Digby.” Mr. White was not contented with paying homage to sir Kenelm on account of his philosophical opinions, but raised him also to the character of a divine. A proof of this is afforded in a book published by him, the title of which is “Quaestio Theologica, quomodo secundum principia Peripatetices DigbsEanae, sive secundum rationem, et abstrahendo, quantum materia patitur, ab authoritate, human! Arbitrii Libertas sit explicanda, et cum Gratia efficaci concilianda.” “A Theological question, in what manner, according to the principles of sir Kenelm Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy, or according to reason, abstracting, as much as the subject will admit, from authority, the freedom of a man’s will is to be explained and reconciled with efficacious grace.” Another publication to the same purpose, which appeared in 1652, was entitled “Institutiones Theologicae super fundamentis in Peripatetica Digbacana jactis exstructae.” “Institutions of Divinity, built upon the foundations laid down in sir K. Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy.” By his friend sir Kenelm Mr. White was introduced, with large commendations, to the acquaintance of Des Cartes, who hoped to make a proselyte of him, but without success. White was too much devoted to Aristotle’s philosophy to admit of the truth of any other system. In his application of that philosophy to theological doctrines, he embarrassed himself in so many nice distinctions, and gave such a free scope to his own thoughts, that he pleased neither the Molinists nor the Jansenists. Indeed, though he had a genius very penetrating and extensive, he had no talent at distinguishing the ideas which should have served as the rule and foundation of his reasonings, nor at clearing the points which he was engaged to defend. His answer to those who accused him of obscurity may serve to display the peculiarity of his disposition. “I value myself,” says he, “upon such a brevity and conciseness, as is suitable for the teachers of the sciences. The Divines are the causg that my writings continue obscure; for they refuse to give me any occasion of explaining myself. In short, either the learned understand me, or they do not. If they do understand me, and find me in an error, it is easy for them to refute me; if they do not understand me, it is very unreasonable for them to exclaim against my doctrines.” This, observes Bayle, shews the temper of a man who seeks only to be talked of, and is vexed at not having antagonists enough to draw the regard and attention of the public upon him. Considering the speculative turn of Mr. White’s mind, it is not surprising that some of his books’ were condemned at Rome by the congregation of the “Index Expurgatorius,” and that they were disapproved of by certain universities. The treatises which found their way into the “Index Expurgatorius” were, “Institutiones Peripatetica?;” “Appendix Theologica de Origine Mundi” “Tabula suffragialis de terminandis Fidei Litibus ab Ecclesia Catholica Fixa;” and “Tessera3 Romanae Evulgatio.” In opposition to the doctors of Douay, who had censured two-and-twenty propositions extracted from his “Sacred Institutions,” he published a pieoe entitled “Supplicatio postulativa Justitiae,” in which he complains that they had given a vague uncertain censure of him, attended only with a respective, without taxing any proposiiion in particular; and he shews them that this is acting like prevaricating divines. Another of his works was the “Sonitus Buccina?,” in which he maintained that the church had no power to determine, but only to give her testimony to tradition. This likewise was censured. Mr. White had a very particular notion concerning the state of souls separated from the body, which involved him in a dispute with the bishop of Chalcedon. Two tracts were written by him upon this subject, of which a large and elaborate account is given in archdeacon Blackburne’s Historical View of the controversy 'concerning an intermediate state. The conclusion drawn by the archdeacon is, that Mr. White entered into the questibn with more precision and greater abilities than any man of his time; and that it is very clear, from the inconsistencies he ran into to save the reputation of his orthodoxy, that if the word purgatory had been out of his way, he would have found no difficulty to dispose of the separate soul in a state of absolute unconscious rest.

Our author spent the latter part of his life in England. Hobbes had a great respect for him, and when he lived in Westminster, would often visit him. In their conversations they carried on their debates with such eagerness as seldom to depart in cool blood; for “they would wrangle, squabble, and scold,” says Anthony Wood, “about philosophical matters, like young sophisters,” though they were both of them eighty years of age. In consequence of Hobbes’ s not being able to endure contradiction, those scholars who were sometimes present at these wrangling disputes, held that the laurel was carried away by White.

“Ordered, That the Committee to which the Bill against Atheism and profaneness is committed, be impowered to receive information touching such books as tend to Atheism, Blasphemy, and profaneness, or against the essence and attributes of God, and in particular the book published in the name of one White, and the book of Mr. Hobbes called the Leviathan, and to report their opinions to the House.”

As to call in question the natural immortality of the human soul was understood to imply atheism, White’s treatise had certainly a tendency to weaken the arguments for that immortality, by weakening the common proofs of the soul’s consciousness in a future state; but there was nothing else in his work which could justly be construed as being of an atheistical nature. It does not appear that the bill against atheism and profaneness ever passed, or that the Commons proceeded farther in their censures of White and Hobbes. White was also obnoxious to the politicians of the time on another account. “To understand this,” says archdeacon Blackburne, “it will be necessary to observe, that White was a disciple of sir Kenelm Digby, not only in philosophy, but also in politics. The knight has been accused, and upon very authentic evidence, of intriguing with Cromwell, to the prejudice of the exiled Stuarts. Whether White was in the depth of the secret or not, it is probable that he knew something of the transaction, and that Digby might set him to work with his pen, in favour of Cromwell’s government. Be this as it might, White wrote a book, about that time, intituled,” The Grounds of Obedience and Government;" wherein he held, ‘That the people, by the evil management, or insufficiency of their governor, are remitted to the force of nature to provide for themselves, and not bound by any promise made to their governor; that the magistrate, by his miscarriages, abdicateth himself from being a magistrate, proveth a brigand or robber, instead of a defender; that if he be innocent, and wrongfully deposed, and totally dispossessed, it were better for the common good to stay as they are, than to venture the restoring him, because of the public hazard.’

Mr. White died at his lodging in Drury-laue, on the 6th of July 1676, aged 94 years; and, on the ninth day of the same month, was buried in the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-fields. “By his death,” says Wood, " the Koman Catholics lost an eminent ornament from among them; and it hath been a question among some of them, whether ever any secular priest of England went beyond him in philosophical matters.

The names by which Mr. White was occasionally distinguished, besides that of Thomas Anglus, were Candidus, Albius, Bianchi, Richworth, and Blackloe. Descartes generally called him Mr. Vitus.

Dodd has given a catalogue of forty-eij*ht publications by White, and endeavours to vindicate his character with considerable impartiality. He says, White was “a kind of enterprizer in the search of truth, and sometimes waded too deep; which, with the attempt of distinguishing between the schoolmen’s superstructures, and strict fundamentals, laid him open to be censured by those that were less inquisitive. It must be owned he sometimes lost himself, by treading in unbeaten paths, and adhered too stiffly to dangerous singularities. This created him adversaries from all quarters. Besides Protestants, who engaged with him. upon several controversial matters, he had several quarrels, both with the clergy and religious of his own communion, who attacked his works with great fury. His book of the” Middle State of Souls’.' gave great scandal, (though I find mention made of it by the learned Mabillon, as a master-piece in its kind). This performance was so represented by his adversaries, as if it rendered prayers for the dead an insignificant service: and the representation was so prejudicial to many of the clergy, that they were neglected in the usual distributions bestowed for the benefit of the faithful deceased. Another work, which drew a persecution upon him, was entitled, “Institutiones Sacrae,” &c. from whence the university of Douay drew twenty-two propositions, and condemned them, under respective censures, Nov. 3, 1660, chiefly at the instigations of Dr. George Leyburn, president of the English college, and John Warner, professor of divinity in the same house. He was again censured for his political scheme, exhibited in his book styled “Obedience and Government;” wherein he is said to assert an universal passive obedience to any species of government which has obtained an establishment; and, as his adversaries insinuated, was designed to flatter Cromwell in his usurpation, and incline him to favour the Catholics, upon the hopes of their being influenced by such principles. These, and several other writings, having given great offence, and the see of Rome being made acquainted with their pernicious tendency (especially when he had attacked the pope’s personal infallibility), they were laid before the inquisition, and censured by a decree of that court, May 14, 1655, and Sept. 7, 1657. Mean time, a body of clergymen, educated in the English college at Douay, signed a public disclaim of his principles. Mr. White had several things to allege against these proceedings. It appeared to him, that neither the court of inquisition, nor any other inferior court, though assembled by his holiness’s orders, were invested with sufficient power to issue out decrees that were binding over the universal church: he exposed, at the same time, the methods and ignorance of the cardinals and divines who were sometimes employed in censuring books; and hinted, how unlikely it was that his holiness either would or could delegate his power to such kind of inferior courts. As to his brethren who had disclaimed his doctrine, he takes notice that they were persons entirely under Dr. Leyburn’s direction, who was his grand adversary, and was continually labouring to discredit his writings. Afterwards, when prejudices were removed, and passion had sufficiently vented itself on both sides, they both came to temper; and Mr. White submitted himself and his writings to the catholic church, and, namely, to the see of Rome. Yet, notwithstanding this submission, a great many, who had conceived almost an irreconcileable idea both of his person and writings, could scarce endure to hear him named. They represented him to be as obstinate as Luther, who, at first, humbled himself to the pope, only to gain time to spread his pestiferous opinions: they would have it, that his design was, visibly, to establish a new heresy. Nay, they pryed into his morals and conduct in private life; miscarriages, in that way, being commonly the forerunners of heresy. But those that were not hurried away with passion and prejudice judged more favourably of him. They owned his rashness, and that he had propagated several singularities, that had given scandal, were erroneous, and carried on with too much violence and disrespect to superior powers: yet that all this was done without any intention of breaking out of the pale of, the church, or opposing the supremacy of the see of Rome. Some, who have calmly reflected upon these matters, have been pleased to observe the wise conduct of the see of Rome upon the occasion, which was far different from that of Mr. White’s adversaries; who, transported with zeal for religion, and, it is to be feared, sometimes with less commendable views, made every thing appear with a formidable aspect: whereas the see of Rome, governed by milder counsels, proceeded with their usual caution, and only barely censured some of his works, wherein Mr. White had the fate of a great many other pious and learned authors, when they happened to advance propositions any way prejudicial to religion. Whatsoever opinion the see of Rome might have of Mr. White’s case, tney judged it a piece of wisdom to let it die gradually. They were well assured, that though he had wit and learning sufficient to have raised a great disturbance in the church, yet he wanted interest to make any considerable party; and they had the charity to think he wanted a will. It is true, several eminent clergymen, who had been his scholars, and were great admirers of his virtue and learning, were unwilling to have his character sacrificed, and his merits lie under oppression, by unreasonable oppositions; and therefore they supported him in some particular controversies he had with doctor Leyburn and others: which was misrepresented by some, as a combination in favour of the novelties he was charged with in point of doctrine. But, adds Dodd, time and recollection have placed things in a true light."

, founder of the Calvinistic methodists, was born at Gloucester, where his father kept the Bell inn, Dec. 16, 1714. He was the youngest of a family of six sons and a daughter; and his father dying when he was only about two years old, the care of his education devolved on his mother, who brought him up with great tenderness. Being placed at school, he made considerable progress in classical learning; and his eloquence began to appear when he was about fourteen or fifteen, in the speeches which he delivered at the annual school visitations. During this period, he resided with his mother; and as her circumstances were not so easy as before, he sometimes assisted her in the business of the inn. By some means, however, he was encouraged to go to Oxford at the age of eighteen, where he entered of Pembroke college. He had not been here long, before he became acquainted with the Wesleys, and joined the society they had formed, which procured them the name of Methodists. Like them, Whitefield, who had been of a serious turn in his early days, began now to live by rule, and to improve every moment of his time. He received the communion every Sunday, visited the sick and the prisoners in jail, and read to the poor; and he shared in the obloquy which this conduct brought upon his brethren.

In the mean time, he became a prey to melancholy, which was augmented, if not occasioned, by excessive bodily austerities; and at last, in consequence of reading some mystic writers, he was led to imagine, that the best method he could take was, to shut himself up in his study, till he had perfectly mortified his own will, and was enabled to do good, without any mixture of corrupt motives. From this, however, he was recovered, returned to society, and we may suppose was not neglectful of his studies; for when only twenty-one years of age he was sent for by Dr. Benson, bishop of Gloucester, who told him that though he had purposed to ordain none under twenty-three, yet he should reckon it his duty to ordain him whenever he applied. He was accordingly admitted to deacon’s orders at Gloucester June 20, 1736, and the Sunday following preached his first sermon in the church of St. Mary de Crypt. Curiosity brought a vast auditory to hear their young townsman. Some idea of the sermon may be learned from what he says himself of it in one of his letters. “Some few mocked, but most, for the present, seemed struck; and I have since learned, that a complaint had been made to the bishop, that I drove fifteen mad the first sermon. The worthy prelate, as I am informed, wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday.”

The week following he returned to Oxford, and took his bachelor’s degree in arts, soon after which he was invited to London to officiate at the chapel of the Tower. He preached also at various other places, and while here letters came from the Wesleys at Georgia, which made him desirou’s to join them, but he was not yet quite clear as to this being his duty. He afterwards supplied a curacy at Durnmer, in Hampshire, and being at length convinced that it was his duty to go to Georgia, he went in Jan. 1737 to take leave of his friends in Gloucester, and then set out for London. General Oglethorpe detaining him here for some months, he preached in various churches, and appears at this time to have attained as great popularity as at any subsequent period of his life, and he met also with part of the same opposition which be had afterwards to encounter.

On the last day of December he set sail, and arrived at the parsonage-house at Savannah May 7, 1738, where he remained until August. In our article of Wesley we noticed how very unsuccessful he had been in this employment from a variety of causes, but principally of a personal nature. Whitefield met with a very different reception, and appears to have deserved it. When he began to look about him, he found every thing bore the aspect of an infant colony, and was likely to continue so, from the very nature of its constitution. “The people,” he says, “were denied the use both of rum and slaves. The lands were allotted them, according to a particular plan, whether good or bad; and the female heirs prohibited from inheriting. So that, in reality, to place people there, on such a footing, was little better than to tie their legs and bid them walk,” &c. As some melioration of their condition, he projected an Orphan-house, for which he determined to raise contributions in England, and accordingly embarked in September, and after a boisterous passage, landed at Limerick in Ireland. There he was received kindly by bishop Burscough, who engaged him to preach in the cathedral; and at Dublin, where he also preached, he was courteously received by Dr. Delany, bishop Rundle, and archbishop Bolton. In the beginning of December he arrived at London, where the trustees of the colony of Georgia expressed their satisfaction at the accounts sent to them of his conduct, and presented him to the living of Savannah (though he insisted upon having no salary), and granted him five hundred acres of land for his intended Orphan-house, to collect money for which, together with taking priest’s orders, were the chief motives of his returning to England so soon.

In the beginning of January 1739 he was ordained priest at Christ-church, Oxford, by bishop Benson, and on the following Sunday resumed his preaching in London; and now the vast crowds which attended, first suggested to him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness, nor did he begin the practice until he went to Bristol in February, and finding the churches denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers, and after he had repeated this three or four times, his congregation is said to have amounted to near twenty thousand. That any human voice could be heard by such a number is grossly improbable, but that in time he was enabled to civilize the greater part of these poor colliers has never been denied. “The first discovery,” he tells us, “of their being affected, was to see the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they came out of their coal-pits,” After this he preached often in the open air in the vicinity of London, particularly in Moorfields and on Kennington common, and made excursions into various parts of the country, where he received contributions for his Orphan-house in Georgia. In August he embarked again for America, and landed in Pennsylvania in October. Afterwards he went through that province, the Jerseys, New York, and back again to Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, preaching every where to immense congregations, and in the beginning of Jan. 1740 arrived at Savannah, where he founded, and in a great measure established, his Orphan-house, by the name of Bethesda. He then took another extensive tour through America, and returned to England in March 1741.

On his arrival he found it necessary to separate from Wesley, whose Arminian sentiments he disapproved of; and he now, with the help of some colleagues, began to form distinct societies of persons who held Calvinistic sentiments. This produced in a short time a new house at Kingswood, and the two Tabernacles in Moorfields and Tottenham-court-road, which were supplied by himself and certain lay preachers, He visited also many parts of England, where similar societies were established, and went to Scotland, where he preached in all the principal towns. In Scotland he was more generally welcomed than any where else, the doctrines he preached according with those of that church, but some refused communion with him, as being a clergyman of the church of England, and of course a friend to prelacy, which in Scotland is abjured. Such was his encouragement, however, upon the whole, that he was induced to repeat his visit in 1742. From this time to August 1744 he remained in England, preaching from place to place, and always with astonishing effect on the minds of his hearers. In August 1744 he embarked again for America, whence he returned in July 1748.

Soon after his return he had become acquainted with Lady Huntingdon, who hearing of his arrival invited him, to her house at Chelsea. He went, and having preached twice, the countess wrote to him that several of the nobility desired to hear him In a few days the celebrated earl of Chesterfield, and others of the same rank, attended, and having heard him once, desired they might hear him again. “I therefore preached again,” says he, “in the evening, and went home, never more surprised at any incident in xny life. All behaved quite well, and were in some degree affected. The earl of Chesterfield thanked me, and said,” Sir, I will not tell you what I shall tell others, how I approve of you,‘ or words to this purpose. At last lord Bolingbroke came to hear, sat like an archbishop, and was pleased to say, ’ I had done great justice to the Divine Attributes in my discourse'." Those who know the characters of Bolingbroke and Chesterfield will probably think less of these compliments than Mr. Whitefield appears to have done.

It would extend this article beyond all reasonable bounds were we to follow Mr. Whitefield’s biographer throughout the whole of his peregrinations in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America. His last great movement was his seventh voyage to Georgia, where he exhausted his strength in his painful labours, and died, of a fit of the asthma, at Newbury Port, in New England, Sept. 30, 1770, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

His biographer informs us, that his person was graceful and well-proportioned; his stature above the middle size. Excepting a squint with one eye, his features were good and regular. His countenance was manly, and his voice vras exceeding strong; yet both were softened with an uncommon degree of sweetness. His deportment was easy, without any formality, and his manner polite, and rather engaging. That he possessed a high degree of eloquence, cannot well be doubted, but he had no affectation, and seemed quite unconscious of the talents he possessed. At first he was more attentive to the apparent than the real effects of his eloquence, but as he grew older distrusted those sudden conversions of which he was perpetually told.

Although we have called Whitefield the founder of the Calvinistic rnethoclists, it would perhaps be more proper to say that he was the reviver of Calvinism in these kingdoms. He left indeed a few places of worship, yet in most instances, he was satisfied with impressing upon the multitudes who flocked to hear him, the importance of their salvation, and leaving them to the constant care of their regular clergymen, or dissenting ministers with whom he maintained communion. But to those distinct congregations which he had raised, have been added, what is called lady Huntingdon’s connection; and since his death the successors at his chapels have laboured diligently to extend their pale, and have formed what is called the union of the Calvinist methodists, which may be considered as having amalgamated the different parties into one body. It has been remarked by a late writer, as a striking difference between Wesley and Whitefield, that “while Wesley was drilling his followers into a regular system, with all the policy of the catholic fathers of Paraguay, and thus raising a well-disciplined army, which moved obsequious to his commanding voice; his less politic brother neglected to provide for the perpetuity of his name, and with generous indifference to self, raised only a popular standard, around which detached parties of flying troops voluntarily ranged themselves.” Whitefield’s Works, practical and controversial, were published in 6 vols. 8vo.

, an eminent divine of the sixteenth century, was of the family of Whiteheads of Tuderiey in Hampshire, and was educated at Oxford, but whether at All Souls or Brasenose colleges, Wood has not deter* mined. He was chaplain to queen Anne Boleyn. Wood says, he was “a great light of learning, and a most heavenly professor of divinity.” Archbishop Cranmer says that “he was endowed with good knowledge, special honesty, fervent zeal, and politic wisdom,”' for which, in 1552, he nominated him as the fittest person for the archbishopric of Armagh. This nomination, however, did not succeed. lit the beginning of the tyrannic reign of queen Mary, he retired, with/many pf his countrymen, to Francfort, where he was chosen pastor to the English congregation of exiles, and when differences arose respecting church discipline, endeavoured to compose them by the moderation of his opinions. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, he “returned to England, and was one of the committee appointed to review king Edward’s liturgy; and in 1559 was also appointed one of the public disputants against the popish bishops* In this he appeared to so much advantage, that the queen is said to have offered him the archbishopric of Canterbury, but this he declined, as well as the mastership of the Savoy, excusing himself to the queen by saying that he could live plentifully by the preaching of the gospel without any preferment. He was accordingly a frequent preacher, and in various places where preaching was most wanted. He remained a single man, which much pleased the queen, who had a great antipathy against the married clergy. Lord Bacon informs us that when Whitehead was one day at court, the queen said,” I like thee better, Whitehead, because thou livest unmarried.“” In troth, madam,“he replied,” I like you the worse for the same cause.“Maddox, in his examination of Neal’s History of the Puritans, thinks that” Whitehead ought to be added to the number of those eminent pious men, who approved of the constitution, and died members of the church of England;“but it appears from Strype’s life of Grindal, that he was deprived in 1564 for objecting to the habits; how long he remained under censure we are not told. He died in 1571, but where buried, Wood was not able to discover. The only works attributed to his pen are,” Lections and Homilies on St. Paul’s Epistles“and in a” Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Francfort,“1575, 4to, are several of his discourses, and answers to the objections of Dr. Home concerning matters of discipline and worship. In Parkhurst’s” Epigram. Juvenil." are some addressed to Whitehead; and from the same authority we learn that he had been preceptor to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk.

, an eminent person among the Quakers, was born at Snnbigg in the parish of Orton, Westmoreland, about 1636, and received his education at the free school of Blencoe in Cumberland. After leaving school he was for a time engaged in the instruction of youth, but before he had attained the age of eighteen, the journal of his life exhibits him travelling in different parts of England, propagating with zeal, as well as success, the principles of the Quakers, then recently become known as a distinct religious denomination. Of the Quakers and their tenets, he had obtained some information a considerable time before an opportunity occurred for his being at any of their meetings. At the first which he attended, it happened that there was a young person present, who feeling deep distress of mind, went out of the meeting, and seated on the ground, unaware or regardless of being observed, cried out “Lord, make me clean; O Lord, make me clean!” an ejaculation which, he says, affected him more than any preaching he had ever heard. Continuing to attend the meetings of the Quakers, he became united with them in profession, and, as has been mentioned, a promnlgator of their doctrine. His first journey was southward, and his first imprisonment, for to one in, this character imprisonment may be mentioned as then almost an event in course, was in the city of Norwich. Another imprisonment of fourteen or fifteen months followed not long after at Edinondsbury, attended with circumstances of much hardship. From this he was released by virtue of an order from the Protector; but was soon again apprehended while preaching at Nayiand in Suffolk, and by two justices sentenced to be whipped, under pretence of his being a* vagabond; which was executed with severity, but neither the pain nor the ignominy of the punishment damped the fervency of the sufferer; and as persecution commonly defeats its own object, so in this case the report of the treatment he had met with spreading in the country, the resort to hear his preaching was increased.

In fact the Acts in force against the Roman Catholics were not un frequently the means of suffering to the Quakers But soon after the restoration of Charles II. the latter were made the express objects of a law, the precursor of others of the same tendency, and imposing penalties that extende 1 to banishment. In the progress of the bill through the House of Commons,' Whitehead with three others was admitted to the bar of the house to be heard in defence of their society; but they pleaded in vain. The bill passed into a law; and two of the four who had thus advocated the cause soon died in a crowded and unhealthy prison, to which they had been dragged from their meetings Whitehead was also imprisoned with them, but escaped the destructive effects of confinement.

In 1672, when the kiog had issued his declaration for suspending the penal laws against nonconformists, a very acceptable service was rendered by Whitehead to the society of which he was a member, by obtaining an order under the great seal for the discharge from prison of about four hundred of their persuasion, many of whom had been for years in a state of close and rigorous restraint. Some other dissenters also partook of the benefit of his exertions, which he records with satisfaction.

On several other occasions he was concerned in applications on behalf of the Quakers to Charles II. and to his successor. After the happy event of the revolution he was eminently assisting to his friends at the time when the Toleration bill was before parliament; and afterwards bore a very considerable part in making those representations which led to the legal allowance of an affirmation instead of an oath, and to other relief. When the bill which has just been adverted to was pending in the House of Commons, a declaration of faith was proposed to be introduced, which to the Quakers, who seem to have been particularly aimed at by it, would not have tyeen perfectly free from objection. In lieu of the declaration so proposed, Whitehead and those who acted with him on behalf of the society, on this important occasion procured another to be substituted, which (thus he expresses himself) "we proposed and humbly offered as our own real belief of the Deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, viz. * I profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for ever; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration. 7 '

Respected and esteemed by his brethren, whom he continued to edify by his ministry and by his example, Whitehead lived to a very advanced age, and appears to have retained his mental faculties to the last. For some weeks, and some weeks only, before his decease, he was prevented from attending meetings for public worship by infirmities which he bore with Christian patience and resignation, waiting for his dissolution, and signifying that the sting of death was taken away. He died in March 1722-3, aged about eighty-six.

He was twice married, but appears to have left no issue. During the latter and considerably the greater part of his life he resided in or near the metropolis. Besides various publications, chiefly controversial, he left behind him some memoirs of his life, which were printed in 1725, in one volume 8vo.

, a physician, and preacher among the Methodists in the connexion of Wesley, whose life he wrote, was born of honest industrious parents in the country. At an early age he exhibited proofs of genius; and, before twenty, was a proficient in the Latin and Greek languages. Early in life he was connected with the Messrs. Wesley, and preached at Bristol. He left them, however, and set up as a linen-draper in that city, but failed in business; after which he became a Quaker, and a speaker in the congregations of that respectable body, who, by their beneficent friendship, set him up in a large boardingschool at Wandsworth, where many of their children were educated. Mr. Barclay, wishing his son to travel, proposed Dr. Whitehead to be his companion, paid all his expences, and settled on him \00l. a year. They went to Leyden, and his thirst for knowledge induced him to attend the anatomical, philosophical, and medical lectureship; and, about 1790, he had arrived at such a pitch of knowledge that his correspondence with Dr. Lettsotn determined the latter to bring him forward; so that, even while at Leyden (Dr. Kooystra, physician of the London Dispensary in Primrose-street, dying) the Doctor introduced him to that most excellent charity. After he had been in London two years, the Friends endeavoured to bring him into the London Hospital, Mileend, which was only lost by one vote, occasioned by giving a draft on a banker for payment the next day instead of the present at the time of the election. In about three years the Doctor left the Quakers, and united himself again to the Wesleys; and Mr. Wesley said to Mr. Ranken, “Do what you can to unite Dr. Whitehead with us again.” He succeeded; and Dr. W. preached very often, and was highly esteemed both as a physician and v preacher; so much so, that he attended Mr. Wesley in his last illness, and preached his funeral sermon. He afterwards published “The Life of the Rev, John Wesley, M. A. some time fellow of Lincoln college, Oxford, collected from his private Papers and printed Works, and written at the request of his Executors.” Of this work, which professedly forms <c a History of Methodism,“the first volume appeared in 1793, the second in 1796. This valuable and candid work occasioned a rupture between Dr. Coke and his associates, who were styled” The Conference," and Dr. Whitehead; as they intended themselves to publish a Life; and the publication caused much party-dispute among the Wesleys, so as to exclude the Doctor from preaching; but a reconciliation took place, and he was again admitted to the pulpit. He died March 7, 1804.

, an English poet and satirist, the youngest son of Edmund Whitehead, a taylor, was born at his father’s house, in Castle-yard, Holborn, Feb. 6, 1709—10, St. Paul’s day, O. S. to which circumstance he is said to owe his name. As he was intended for trade, he received no other education than what a school at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, afforded; and, at the usual age, was placed as an apprentice to a mercer or woollen-draper in London. Here he had for his associate the late Mr. Lowth, of Paternoster-row, long the intimate friend, and afterwards the executor, of the celebrated tragedian, James Q,uin. Whitehead and Lowth were both of a lively disposition, and fond of amusement: Lowth had attached himself to the theatre, and by his means Whitehead became acquainted with some of the theatrical personages of that day; and among others, with Fleetwood, the manager. Lowth, however, continued in business, while Whitehead was encouraged to enter himself of the Temple, and study the law.

Fleetwood was always in distress, and always contriving new modes of relief: Whitehead was pliable, good-natured, and friendly; and being applied to by the artful manager, to enter into a joint security for the payment of three thousand pounds, which he was told would not affect him, as another name, besides Fleetwood’s, was wanted merely as a matter of form, readily fell into the snare. It is perhaps wonderful that Whitehead, who knew something of business, and something of law, should have been deceived by a pretence so flimsy: but, on the other hand, it is not improbable that Fleetwood, who had the baseness to lie, had also the cunning to enjoin secresy; and Whitehead might be flattered, by being thus admitted into his confidence. The consequence, however, was, that Fleetwood was unable to pay; and Whitehead, considering himself as entrapped into a promise, did not look upon it as binding in honour, and therefore submitted to a long confinement in the Fleet Prison. If this transaction happened, as one of his biographers informs us, about the year 1742, Whitehead was not unable to have satisfied Fleetwood’s creditors. He had, in the year 1735, married Anna Dyer, the only daughter of Sir Swinnerton Dyer, bart. of Spains Hall, Essex, with whom he received the sum of ten thousand pounds. By what means he was released at last, without payment, we are not told.

Long before this period, Whitehead, who from his infancy had discovered a turn for poetry, and had, when at school, corresponded in rhime with his father, distinguished himself both as a poet and a politician. In the latter character, he appears to have united the principles of Jacobitism and republicanism in no very consistent proportions. As a Jacobite, he took every opportunity of venting his spleen against the reigning family; and, as a republican, he was no less outrageous in his ravings about liberty; which, in his dictionary, meant an utter abhorrence of kings, courts, and ministers. His first production of this kind was the “State Dunces,” in 1733, inscribed to Mr. Pope, and written with a close imitation of that poet’s satires. The keenness of his abuse, and harmony of his verse, and, above all, the personalities which he dealt about him with a most liberal hand, conferred popularity on this poem, and procured him the character of an enemy who was to be dreaded, and a friend who ought to be secured. He was accordingly favoured by the party then in opposition to sir Robert Walpole; and, at no great distance of time, became patronized by Bubb Dodington, and the other adherents of the Prince of Wales’ s court. The “State Dunces” was answered, in a few days, by “A Friendly Epistle” to its author, in verse not much inferior. Whitehead sold his poem to Doclsley for ten guineas; a circumstance which Dr. Johnson, who thought meanly of our poet, recollected afterwards, when Dodsley offered to purchase his “London,” and conditioned for the same sum. “I might, perhaps, have accepted of less, but that Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten guineas for a poem, and I would not take less than Paul Whitehead.”

In 1739, Whitehead published his more celebrated poem, entitled “Manners;” a satire not only upon the administration, but upon all the venerable forms of the constitution, under the assumption of a universal depravity of manners. Pope had at this time taken liberties which, in the opinion of some politicians, ought to be repressed. la his second dialogue of “Serenteen Hundred and Thirtyeight,” he gave offence to one of the Foxes, among others; which Fox, in a reply to Lyttelton, took an opportunity of repaying, by reproaching him with the friendship of a lampooner, who scattered his ink without fear or decency, and against whom he hoped the resentment of the legislature would quickly be discharged. Pope, however, was formidable, and had many powerful friends. With all his prejudices, he was the first poet of the age, and an honour to his country. But Paul Whitehead was less entitled to respect: he was formidable rather by his calumny than his talents, and might be prosecuted with effect.

Accordingly, in the House of Peers, lord Delawar, after expatiating on the gross falsehoods and injurious imputations contained in a poem against many noblemen and prelates of high character, moved that the author and publisher should attend at the bar of the house. On the day appointed, Dodsley appeared as the publisher, Whitehead having absconded. Dodsley pleaded that he did not look into the contents of the poem, “but that imagining there might be something in it, as he saw it was a satire by its title-page, that might be laid hold of in law, he insisted that the author should affix his name to it, and that then he printed it.” In consequence of this confession he was taken into the custody of the usher of the black rod, but released after a short confinement and payment of the usual fees. In order to procure this lenity, Dodsley drew up a petition to the House, which the earl of Essex, one of the noble personages libelled in the poem, had the generosity to present. Victor, in one of his letters, informs us that he had the boldness to suggest this measure to the earl.

No farther steps were taken against the author of “Man-r ners;” the whole process, indeed, was supposed to be intended rather to intimidate Pope than to punish Whitehead; and it answered that purpose: Pope became cautious, “willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,” and Whitehead for some years remained quiet. The noise, however, which this prosecution occasioned, and its failure as to the main object, induced Whitehead’s enemies to try whether he might not be assailed in another way, and rendered the subject of odium, if not of punishment. In this pursuit the authors of some of the ministerial journals published a letter from a Cambridge student who had been expelled for atheism, in which it was intimated that Whitehead belonged to a club of young men who assembled to encourage one another in shaking off what they termed the prejudices of education. But Whitehead did not suffer this to disturb the retirement so necessary in his present circumstances, and as the accusation had no connection with his politics or his poetry, he was content to sacrifice his character with respect to religion, which he did not value, in support of the cause he had espoused. That he was an infidel seems generally acknowledged by all his biographers; and when he joined the club at Mednam Abbey, it mustbe confessed that his practices did not disgrace his profession.

In 1744 he published “The Gymnasiad,” a just satire on the savage amusements of the boxers, which were then more publicly, if not more generally encouraged, than in our own days. Broughton, who died within these few years at Lambeth, was at that time the invincible champion, and Whitehead accordingly dedicated the poem to him in a strain of easy humour. Soon after, he published “Honour *,” another satire at the expence of the leading men in power, whom he calumniates with all that relentless and undistinguishing bitterness in which Churchill afterwards excelled. We next find him an active partizan in the contested election for Westminster between lord Trentham and sir George Vandeput, in 1749. He not only canvassed

* " I must tell you that the cele- tice of exalting some characters, and

visit; and it was my fate to be once shocking in it, that the finest genius

for having naturally as strong an an- the horror of; and I had much ado to

ged in, and condemned by my per- wretchedly misapplied." Part of a

verse fortune to hear part of a satyre letter from Mrs. Carter (in her Mejust ready for the press. Considered moirs lately published by the Rev. M as poetry and wit, it had some ex- Pennington) and, dated April 1745. tremeljrfine strokes but the yilepracfor sir George (for whom also his patron Dodington voted) but wrote the greater part of his advertisements, handbills, and paragraphs. He wrote also the “Case of the hon. Alexander Murray,” who was sent to Newgate for heading a riot on that occasion.

In 1755 he published “An Epistle to Dr. Thomson.” This physician was one of the persons who shared in the conviv.al hours of Mr. Dodington, afterwards lord Melcombe, although it is not easy to discover what use he could make of a physician out of practice, a man of most slovenl) habits, and who had neither taste nor talents. It was at his lordship’s house where Whitehead became acquainted with this man, ancUooked up to him as an oracle both in politics and physic; and here too he associated very cordially with Ralph, whom he had abused with so much contempt in the “State Dunces.” From his Diary lately published, and from some of his unpublished letters in our possession, it appears that Dodington had no great respect for Thomson, and merely used him, Whitehead, Ralph, and others, as convenient tools in his various political intrigues. Whitehead’s epistle is an extravagant encomium on Thomson, of whose medical talents he could be no judge, and which, if his “Treatise on the Small- pox” be a specimen, were likely to be more formidable to his patients than to his brethren.

Except a small pamphlet on the disputes, in 1768, between the four managers of Covent- garden theatre, the “Epistle to Dr. Thomson” was the last of our author’s detached publications. The lesser pieces to be found in his works, were occasional trirles written for the theatres or public gardens. He was now in easy, if not affluent circumstances. By the interest of lord Le Despenser, he got the place of deputy- treasurer of the chamber, worth 800l. and held it to his death. On this acquisition, he purchased a cottage on Twickenham common, and from a design of his friend Isaac Ware, the architect, at a small expence improved it into an elegant villa. Here, according to sir John Hawkins, he was visited by very few of the inhabitants of that classical spot, but his house was open to all his London acquaintance Hogarth, Lambert, and Hayman, painters; Isaac Ware, Beard, and Havard, &c. In such company principally, he passed the remainder of his days, suffering the memory of his poetry and politics to. decay gradually. His death happened at his lodgings in Henrietta-street, Covent-garden, Dec. So, 1774. For some time previous to this event he lingered under a severe illness, during which he employed himself in burning all his manuscripts. Among these were the originals of many occasional pieces of poetry, written for the amusement of his friends, some of which had prohably been published without his name, and cannot now be distinguished. His Works were published in an elegant quarto volume (in 1777) by Capt. Edward Thompson, who prefixed memoirs of his life, in which however there is very little that had not been published in the Annual Register of 1775. The character Thompson gives of him is an overstrained panegyric, inconsistent in itself, and more so when compared with some facts which he had not the sense to conceal, nor the virtue to censure.

Be born a Whitehead and baptised a Paul." *

will want nothing else to excite abhorrence; but Churchill has taken too many liberties with truth to be believed without corroborating evidence. Besides, we are to consider what part of Whitehead’s conduct excited this indignation. Paul’s great and unpardonable crime, in Churchill’s eyes, was his accepting a place under government, and laying aside a pen, which, in conjunction with Churchill’s, might have created wonders in the political world. Churchill could not dislike him because he was an infidel and a man of pleasure. In point of morals, there was surely not much difference in the misfortune of being born a Whitehead or a Churchill.

How very erroneous Whitehead’s life had been, is too evident from his having shared in those scenes of blasphemy and debauchery which were performed at Medmenham, or Mednam Abbey, a house on the banks of the Thames, near Marlow in Buckinghamshire. His noble patron (then sir Francis Dashwood), sir Thomas Stapleton, John Wilkes, Whitehead, and others, combined at this place in a scheme of impious and sensual indulgence, unparalleled in the annals of infamy; and perhaps there cannot be a more striking proof of want of shame, as well as of virtue, than the circumstance which occasioned the discovery of this refined brothel. Wilkes was the first person to disclose the shocking secret, and that merely out of a pique against one of the members who had promoted the prosecution against him for writing the “Essay on Woman.” In the same note, to one of Churchill’s poems, in which he published the transactions of this profligate cabal, he was not ashamed to insert his own name as a partner in the guilt.

That Whitehead repented of the share he took in this club, we are not told. His character suffered, however, in common with that of the other members; and he appears to have been willing to “buy golden opinions of all men” by acts of popularity, and gain some respect from his social, if he could gain none from his personal virtues. Sir John Hawkins represents him, as by nature a friendly and kind-hearted man, well acquainted with vulgar manners and the town, but little skilled in knowledge of the world, and little able to resist the arts of designing men. He had married a woman of a good family and fortune, whom, though homely in her person, and little better than an ideot, he treated not only with humanity, but with tenderness, hiding, as well as he was able, those defects in her understanding, which are oftener the subjects of ridicule than compassion. At Twickenham, adds sir John, he manifested the goodness of his nature in the exercise of kind offices, in healing breaches, and composing differences between his poor neighbours.

But whatever care Whitehead took to retrieve his character, and throw oblivion over the most blameable part of his life, he unintentionally revived the whole by a clause in his will, in which, out of gratitude, he bequeathed his Heart to lord Le Despenser, and desired it might be deposited, if his lordship pleased, in some corner of his mausoleum. These terms were accordingly fulfilled, and the valuable relic deposited with the ceremony of a military procession, vocal performers habited, as a choir, in surplices, and every other testimony of veneration. The whole was followed by the performance of an oratorio in West Wycombe church. The following incantation which was sung at the placing of the urn in the mausoleum, may be a sufficient specimen of this solemn mockery:

His poems were appended to the last edition of Dr. Johnson’s collection, yet it may be doubted whether any partiality can assign him a very high rank even among versifiers. He was a professed imitator of Pope, in his satires, and may be entitled to all the praise which successful imitation deserves. His lines are in general harmonious and correct, and sometimes vigorous, but he owed his popularity chiefly to the personal calumnies so liberally thrown out against men of rank, in the defamation of whom a very active and extensive party was strongly interested. Like Churchill’s, therefore, his works were forgotten when the contending parties were removed or reconciled. But he had not the energetic and original genius of Churchill, nor can we find many passages in which the spirit of genuine poetry is discoverable. Of his character as a poet, he was himself very careless, considering it perhaps as only the temporary instrument of his advancement to ease and independence. No persuasions could induce him to collect his works, and they would probably* never have been collected, had not the frequent mention of his name in conjunction with those of his political patrons, and the active services of his pen, created a something like permanent reputation, and a desire to collect the various documents by which the history of factions may be illustrated.

, another English poet, of a more estimable character, was born at Cambridge in the beginning of 1715. His father was a baker in St. Botolph’s parish, and at one time must have been a man of some property or some interest, as he bestowed a liberal education on his eldest son, John, wtio after entering into the church, held the living of Pershore in the diocese of Worcester. He would probably have been enabled to extend the same care to William, his second son, had he not died when the boy was at school, and left his widow involved in debts contracted by extravagance or folly. A few acres of land, near Grantchester, on which he expended considerable sums of money, without, it would appear, expecting much return, is yet known by the name of White head’s Folly* William received the first rudiments of education at some common school at Cambridge, and at the age of fourteen was removed to Winchester, having obtained a nomination into that college by the interest of Mr. Bromley, afterwards lord MonttorC. Of his behaviour while at school his biographer, Mr. Mason, received the following account from Dr. Balguy. " He was always of a delicate turn, and though obliged to go to the hills with the other boys, spent his time there in reading either plays or poetry; and was also particularly fond of the Atalantis, and all other books of private history or character. He very early exhibited his taste for poetry; for while other boys were contented with shewing up twelve or fourteen lines, he would till half a sheet, but always with English verse. This Dr. Burton, the master, at first discouraged; but, after some time, he was so much charmed, that he spoke of them with rapture. When he was sixteen he wrote a whole comedy. In the winter of the year 1732, he is said to have acted a female part in the Andria, under Dr. Burton’s direction. Of this there are some doubts; but it is certain that he acted Marcia, in the tragedy of Cato, with much applause. In the year 1733, the earl of Peterborough, having Mr. Pope at his house near Southampton, carried him to Winchester to shew him the college, school, &c. The earl gave ten guineas to be disposed of in prizes amongst the boys, and Mr. Pope set them a subject to write upon, viz. Peterborough. Prizes of a guinea each were given to six of the boys, of whom Whitehead was one. The remaining sum was laid out for other boys in subscriptions to Pine’s Horace, then about to be published. He never excelled in writing epigrams, nor did he make any considerable figure in Latin verse, though he understood the classics very well, and had a good memory. He was, however, employed to translate into Latin the first epistle of the Essay on Man; and the translation is still extant in his own hand. Dobson’s success in translating Prior’s Solomon had put this project into Mr. Pope’s head, and he set various persons to work upon it.

“His school friendships were usually contracted either with noblemen, or gentlemen of large fortune, such as lord Drumlanrig, sir Charles Douglas, sir Robert Burdett, Mr. Try on, and Mr. Mundy of Leicestershire. The choice of those persons was imputed by some of his schoolfellows to vanity, by others to prudence; but might it not be owing to his delicacy, as this would make him easily disgusted with the coarser manners of ordinary boys? He was schooltutor to Mr. Wallop, afterwards lord Lymington, son to the late earl of Portsmouth, and father to the present earl. He enjoyed, for some little time, a lucrative place in the college, that of preposter of the hall. At the election in September, 1735, he was treated with singular injustice; for, through the force of superior interest, he was placed so low on the roll, that it was scarce possible for him to succeed to New-college. Being now superannuated, he left Winchester of course, deriving no other advantage from the college than a good education: this, however, he had ingenuity enough to acknowledge, with gratitude, in a poem prefixed to the second edition of Dr. Lowth’s Life of William of Wickham.”

In all this there is nothing extraordinary; nor can the partiality of his biographer conceal that, among the early efforts of his muse, there is not one which seems to indicate the future poet, although he, is anxious to attribute this to his having followed the example of Pope, rather than of Spenser, Fairfax, arvd Milton. The “Vision of Solomon,” however, which he copied from Whitehead’s juvenile manuscripts, is entitled to considerable praise. Even when a schoolboy he had attentively studied the various manners of the best authors; and in the course of his poetical life, attained no small felicity in exhibiting specimens of almost every kind of stanza.

Although he lost his father before he had resided at Winchester above two years, yet by his own frugality, an,d such assistance as his mother, a very amiable, prudent, and exemplary woman, could give him, he was enabled to remain at school until the election for New college, in which we have seen he was disappointed. Two months after, he returned to Cambridge, where he was indebted to his extraction, low as Mr. Mason thinks it, for what laid the foundation of his future success in life. The circumstance of his being the orphan son of a baker gave him an unexceptionable claim to one of the scholarships found at Clarehall by Mr. Thomas Pyke, who had followed that trade in Cambridge. His mother accordingly got him admitted a sizar in this college, under the tuition of Messrs. Curling-, Goddard, and Hopkinson, Nov. 26, 1735. After every allowance is made for the superior value of money in his time, it will remain a remarkable proof of his poverty and economy, that this scholarship, which amounted only to four shillings a week, was in his circumstances a desirable object.

He brought some little reputation with him to college, and his poetical attempts when at school, with the notice Mr. Pope had taken of him, would probably secure him from the neglect attached to inferiority of rank. But it is more to his honour that by his amiable manners and intelligent conversation, he recommended himself to the special notice of some very distinguished contemporaries, of Drsi Powell, Balguy, Ogden, Stebbing, and Hurd, who not only admitted him to an occasional intercourse, but to an intimacy and respect which continued through the various scenes of their lives; In sueh society his morals and industry had every encouragement which the best example could give, and be soon surmounted the prejudices which vulgar minds might have indulged on the recollection of his birth and poverty.

When the marriage of the prince of Wales in 1736, and the birth of his son, the present king, called for the gratulatory praises of the universities, Whitehead wrote some verses on these subjects, which he inserted in the first collection of his poems, published in 1754, but omitted from the second in 1774. They are restored, however, to the late edition of the English Poets, as they have been reprinted in some subsequent collections; nor can there be much danger to the reputation of a poet in telling the world that his earliest efforts were not his best.

The production with which, in Mr. Mason’s opinion, he commenced a poet, was his epistle “On the Danger of Writing in Verse.” This, we are told, obtained general admiration, and was highly approved by Pope. But that it is “one of the most happy imitations extant of Pope’s preceptive manner,” is a praise which seems to come from Mr. Mason’s friendship, rather than his judgment. The subject is but slightly touched, and the sentiments are often obscure. The finest passage, and happiest imitation of Pope, is that in which he condemns the licentiousness of certain poets. The tale of “Atys and Adrastus,” his next publication, is altogether superior to the former. It is elegant, pathetic, and enriched with some beautiful imagery. “The Epistle of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII.” which followed, will not be thought to rank very high among productions of this kind. “The truth is,” says Mr. Mason, “Mr. Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard is such a chef (TceuvrC) that nothing of the kind can be relished after it.” Our critic has, however, done no credit to Whitehead by this insinuation of rivalship, and yet less to himself by following it with a petulant attack on Dr. Johnson. In his eagerness to injure the reputation of a man so much his superior, and with whom, it is said, he never exchanged an angry word, he would exclude sympathy from the charms which attract in the Eloisa, and, at the expence of taste and feeling, passes a clumsy sarcasm on papistical machinery.

The “Essay on Ridicule” was published in 1743. It is by far the best, of his didactic pieces, and one upon which, his biographer thinks, he bestowed great pains. “His own natural candour led him to admit the use of this excellent (though frequently misdirected) weapon of the mind with more restrictions than, perhaps, any person will submit to, who has the power of employing it successfully.” The justice of this observation is proved by almost universal experience. Pope and Swift at this time were striking instances of the abuse of a talent which, moderated by candour, and respect for what ought to be above all ridicule and all levity, might contribute more powerfully to sink vice into contempt than any other means that can be employed!.

This poem is not now printed as it came from the pen of the author on its first publication. Some lines at the conclusion are omitted, in which he was afraid he had authorized too free a use of ridicule, and the names of Lucian and Cervantes, whom he held as legitimate models, are omitted, that honour being reserved for Addison only.

His next essay was the short epistle to the earl of Ashburnham on “Nobility.” His biographer is silent concerning it, because it was not inserted in either of the editions of his works, nor can he assign the reason, although it does not appear to be very obscure. With much excellent advice, there is a mixture of democratic reflection on hereditary titles, and insinuations respecting

As strength with ease, and liberty with kings,"

which he might think somewhat uncourtly in the collected works of one who had become the companion of lords, and the Poet Laureat.

In the publication of the poems now enumerated, while at college, Mr. Mason informs us that he was less eager for poetical fame than desirous of obtaining a maintenance by the labours of his pen, that he might be less burthensome to his mother. With this laudable view, he practised the strictest economy, and pursued his studies with exemplary diligence. Whether his inclination led him to any particular branch of science we are not told. In 1739 he took his degree of bachelor of arts, and in 1742 was elected a fellow of his college. In 1743, he was admitted master of arts, and appears about this time to have had an intention to take orders. Some lines which he wrote to a friend, and which are reprinted among the additional fragments to his works, treat this intention with a levity unbecoming that, which, if not serious, is the worst of all hypocrisy. He was prevented, however, from indulging any thoughts of the church by an incident which determined the tenour of his future life.

William, third earl of Jersey, was at this time making inquiries after a proper person to be private tutor to his second son, the late earl, and Whitehead was recommended by Mr. commissioner Graves as a person qualified for this important charge. Mr. Whitehead accepted the offer, as his fellowship would not necessarily be vacated by it, and in the summer of 1745, removed to the earl’s house in town, where he was received upon the most liberal footing. A young friend of the family, afterwards general Stephens, was also put under his care, as a companion to the young nobleman in his studies, and a spur to his emulation. Placed thus in a situation where he could spare some hours from the instruction of his pupils, he became a frequenter of the theatre, which had been his favourite amusement long before he had an opportunity of witnessing the superiority of the London performers. Immediately on his coming to to.vvb, he had written a little ballad farce, entitled, “The Edinburgh Ball,” in which the young Pretender is held up to ridicule. This, however, was never performed or printed. He then began a regular tragedy, “The Roman Father,” which was produced on the stage in 1750. He appears to have viewed the difficulties of a first attempt with a wary eye, and had the precaution to make himself known to the public by the “Lines addressed to Dr. Hoadly.” Those to Mr. Garrick, on his becoming joint patentee of Drury-lane theatre, would probably improve his interest with one whose excessive tenderness of reputation was among the few blemishes in his character.

It is not necessary to expatiate on the merits of the Roman Father, which still retains its place on the stage, and has been the choice of many new performers who wished to impress the audience with a favourable opinion of their powers, and of some old ones who are less afraid of modern than of antient tragedy, of declamation than of passion. Mr. Mason has bestowed a critical discussion upon it, but evidently with a view to throw out reflections on “Irene,” which Johnson never highly valued, and on Garrick, whom he accused of a tyrannical use of the pruning-knife. To this, however, he confesses that Whitehead submitted with the humblest deference, nor was it a deference which dishonoured either his pride or his taste. He avowedly wrote for stage- effect, and who could so properly judge of that as Garrick

The next production of our author was the “Hymn to the Nymph of the Bristol Spring,' 7 in 1751,” written in the manner of those classical addresses to heathen divinities of which the hymns of Homer and Callimachus are the archetypes.“This must be allowed to be a very favourable specimen of his powers in blank verse, and has much of poetical fancy and ornament.” The Sweepers,“a ludicrous attempt in blank verse, would, in Mr. Mason’s opinion, have received more applause than it has hitherto done, had the taste of the generality of readers been founded more on their own feelings than on mere prescription and authority. It appears to us, however, to be defective in plan: there is an effort at humour in the commencement, of which the effect is painfully interrupted by the miseries of a female sweeper taken into keeping, and passing to ruin through the various stages of prostitution. About this time, if we mistake not, for Mr. Mason has not given the precise date, he wrote the beautiful stanzas on” Friendship,“which that gentleman thinks one of his best and most finished compositions. What gives it a peculiar charm is, that it comes from the heart, and appeals with success to the experience of every man who has imagined what friendship should be, or known what it is. The celebrated Gray, according to Mr. Mason’s account,” disapproved the general sentiment which it conveyed, for he said it would furnish the unfeeling and capricious with apologies for their defects; and that it ought to be entitled A Satire on Friendship.“Mr. Mason repeated this opinion to the author, who, in consequence, made a considerable addition to the concluding part of the piece.” Still, however, as the exceptionable stanzas remained, which contained an apology for what Mr. Gray thought no apology ought to be made, he continued unsatisfied, and persisted in saying, that it had a bad tendency, and the more so, because the sentiments which he thought objectionable were so poetically and finely expressed."

This is n singular anecdote; how far Gray was right in his opinion may be left to the consideration of the reader, who is to remember that the subject of these verses is school-boy friendship. Some instances of its instability Whitehead may have experienced, and the name of Charles Townshend is mentioned as one who forgot him when he became a statesman. But it is certain that he had less to complain of, in this respect, than most young men of higher pretensions, for he retained the greater part of his youthful friendships to the last, and was, indeed, a debtor to friendship for almost all he had. What Gray seems to be afraid of, is Whitehead’s admission that the decay of friendship may be mutual, and from causes for which neither party is seriously to blame.

The subject of this poem is not indirectly connected, with the verses which he wrote about this time (1751) to the rev. Mr. Wright, who had blamed him for leading what some of his friends thought a dependent life, and for not taking orders, or entering upon a regular profession. For this there was certainly some plea. He had resigned his fellowship in 1746, about a year after he became one of lord Jersey’s family, and with that, every prospect of Advantage from his college. He had now remained five years in this family, and had attained the age of thirty-six, without any support but what depended on the liberality of his employer, or the sale of his poems. It was not therefore very unreasonable in his friend to suggest, that he had attained the age at which men in general have determined their course of life, and that his present situation must be one of two things, either dependent or precarious.

In the verses just mentioned, Whitehead endeavours to vindicate his conduct, and probably will be found to vindicate it like one too much enamoured of present ease to look forward to probable disappointment. He is content with dependence, because he has made it easy to himself; his present condition is quiet and contentment, and what can his future be more thus ingeniously shifting the subject from a question of dependence or independence, to that of ambition and bustle. But although this will not apply generally, such was his temper or his treatment that it proved a sufficient apology in his own case. Throughout a long life, he never had cause to repent of the confidence he placed in his noble friends, who continued to heap favours upon him in the most delicate manner, and without receiving, as far as we know, any of those humiliating or disgraceful returns which degrade genius and endanger virtue.

The poems now enumerated and a few others of the, lighter kind, he published in 1754 in one volume; and about the same time produced his second tragedy, “Creusa,” which had not the success of the “Roman Father,” although Mr. Mason seems inclined to give it the preference. But it ought not to be forgot that, with the profits arising from these theatrical productions, our author honourably discharged his father’s debts.

About this time, lord Jersey determined that his son should complete his education abroad, and the late lord Harcourt having the same intentions concerning his eldest son lord viscount Nuneham, a young nobleman of nearly the same age, Mr. Whitehead was appointed governor to both, and gladly embraced so favourable an opportunity of enlarging his views by foreign travel. Leipsic was the place where they were destined to pass the winter of 1754, in order to attend the lectures of professor Mascow on the Droit publique. They set off in June, and resided the rest of the summer at Rheims, that they might habituate themselves to the French language, and then passed seven months at Leipsic, with little satisfaction or advantage, for they found the once celebrated Mascow in a state of dotage, without being quite incapacitated from reading his former lectures.

In the following spring, they visited the -German courts, proceeded to Vienna, and thence to Italy. On their return homeward, they crossed the Alps, and passed through Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, being prevented from visiting France by the declaration 'of war, and landed at Harwich in September 1756. During this tour, Whitehead wrote those elegies and odes which relate to subjects inspired on classic ground, and in which he attempts picturesque imagery with more felicity than in any of his former pieces. He had, indeed, in this tour, every thing before his eyes which demanded grandeur of conception and elevation of language. He beheld the objects which had animated poets in all ages, and his mind appears to have felt all thai local emotion can produce.

Mr. Mason complains that these elegies were not popular, and states various objections made to them; he does not add by whom: but takes care to inform us that the poet bore his fate contentcrdly, because he was no longer under the necessity of adapting himself to the public taste in order to become a popular writer. He had received, while yet in Italy, two genteel patent placesf, usually united, the badges of secretary and register of the order of the Bath; and two years after, on 'he death of old Gibber, he was appointee) poet laureat. This last place was offered to Gray, by Mr. Mason’s mediation, and an apology was made for passing over Mr. Mason himself, “that being in orders, he was thought, merely on that account, less eligible for the office than a layman.” Mr. Mason says, he was glad to hear this reason assigned, and did not think it a weak one. It appears, however, that a higher respect was paid to Gray than to Whitehead, in the offer of the appointment. Gray was to hold it as a sinecure, but Whitehead was expected to do the duties of the Laureat. In this dilemma, if it may be so called, Mr. Mason endeavoured to relieve his friend by an expedient not very promising. He advised him to employ a deputy to write his annual odes, and reserve his own pen for certain great occasions, as a peace, or a royal marriage: and he pointed out to him two or three needy poets who, for the reward of five or ten guineas, would be humble enough to write under the eye of the musical composer. Whitehead had more confidence in his powers, or more respect for his royal patron, than to take this advice, and set himself to compose his annual odes with the zeal that he employed on his voluntary effusions. But although he had little to fear from the fame of his predecessor, he was not allowed to enjoy all the benefits of comparison. His odes were confessedly superior to those of Gibber, but the office itself, under Gibber’s possession, had become so ridiculous, that it was no easy task to restore it to some degree of public respect. Whitehead, however, was perhaps the man of all others, his contemporaries, who could perform this with most ease to himself. Attacked as he was, in every way, by “the little fry” of the poetical profession, he was never provoked into retaliation, aud bore even the more dangerous abuse of Churchill, with a real or apparent indifference, which to that turbulent libeller must have been truly mortifying. He was not, however, insensible of the inconvenience, to say the least, of -a situation which obliges a man to write two poems yearly upon the same subjects; and with this feeling wrote “The Pathetic Apology for all Laureats,” which, from the motto, he appears to have intended to reach that quarter where only redress could be obtained, but it was not published till after his death.

For some years after his return to England, he lived almost entirely in the house of the earl of Jersey, no longer as a tutor to his son, but as a companion of amiable manners and accomplishments, whom the good sense of that nobleman and his lady preferred to be the partner of their familiar and undisguised intimacy, and placed at their table as one not unworthy to sit with guests of whatever rank. The earl and countess were now advanced in years, and his biographer informs us, that Whitehead “willingly devoted the principal part of his time to the amusement of his patron and patroness, which, it will not be doubted by those who know with what unassuming ease, and pleasing sallies of wit, he enlivened his conversation, must have made their hours of sickness or pain pass away with much more serenity.” The father of lord Nuneham also gave him a general invitation to his table in town, and to his delightful seat in the country; and the two young lords, during the whole of his life, bestowed upon him every mark of affection and respect. During this placid enjoyment of high life, he produced “The School for Lovers,” a comedy which was performed at Drury-lane in 1762. In the advertisement prefixed to it, he acknowledges his obligations to a small dramatic piece written by M. de Fontenelle. This comedy was not unsuccessful, but was written on a plan so very different from all that is called comedy, that the critics were at. a loss where to place it. Mr. Mason, who will not allow it to be classed among the sentimental, assigns it a very high station among the small list of our genteel comedies. In the same year, he published his “Charge to the Poets,” in which, as Laureat, he humorously assumes the dignified mode of a bishop giving his visitatorial instructions to his clergy. He is said to have designed this as a continuation of “The Dangers of writing verse.” There seems, however, no very close connection, while as a poem it is far superior, not only in elegance and harmony of verse, but in the alternation of serious advice and genuine humour, the whole chastened by candour for his brethren, and a kindly wish to protect them from the fastidiousness of criticism, as well as to heal the mutual animosities of the genus irritabile. But, laudable as the attempt was, he had not even the happiness to conciliate those whose cause he pleaded. Churchill, from this time, attacked him whenever he attacked any, but Whitehead disdained to reply, and only adverted to the animosity of that poet in a few lines which he wrote towards the close of his life, and which appear to be part of some longer poem. They have already been noticed in the life of Churchill. One consequence of Churchill’s animosity, neither silence nor resentment could avert. Churchill, at this time, had possession of the town, and made some characters unpopular, merely by joining them with others who were really so. Garrick was so frightened at the abuse he threw out against Whitehead, that he would not venture to bring out a tragedy which the latter offered to him. Such is Mr. Mason’s account, but if it was likely to succeed, why was it not produced when Churchill and his animosities were forgotten? The story, however, may be true, for when in 1770, he offered his “Trip to Scotland,” a farce, to Mr. Garrick, he conditioned that it should be produced without the name of the author. The secret was accordingly preserved both in acting and publishing, and the farce was performed and read for a considerable time, without a suspicion that the grave author of “The School for Lovers” had relaxed into the broad mirth and ludicrous improbabilities of farce.

In 1774, he collected his poems and dramatic pieces together, with the few exceptions already noticed, and published them in two volumes, under the title of “Plays and Poems,” concluding with the Charge to the Poets, as a farewell to the Muses. He had, however, so much leisure, and so many of those incitements which a poet and a moralist cannot easily resist, that he still continued to employ his pen, and proved that it was by no means worn out. In 1776 he published “Variety, a tale for married people,” a light, pleasing poem, in the manner of Gay, which speedily ran through five editions. His “Goat’s Beard,” (in 1777) was less familiar and less popular, but is not inferior in moral tendency and just satire on degenerated manners. It produced an attack, entitled “Asses Ears, a Fable,” addressed to the author of the Goat’s Beard, in which the office of Laureat is denied to men of genius, and judged worthy to be held only by such poets as bhadwell and Gibber.

The “Goat’s Beard” was the last of-Whitehead’s publications. He left in manuscript the tragedy already mentioned, which Garrick was afraid to perform; the name Mr. Mason conceals, but informs us that the characters are noble, and the story domestic. He left also the first act of an “CEdipus” the beginning, and an imperfect plan of a tragedy founded on king Edward the Second’s resignation of his crown to his son, and of another composed of Spanish and Moorish characters; and a few small poetical pieces, some of which Mr. Mason printed in the volume to which he prefixed his Memoirs, in 1788.

After he had taken leave of the public as an author, except in his official productions, he continued to enjoy the society of his friends for some years, highly respected for the intelligence of his conversation and the suavity of his manners. His death, which took place on April 14, 1785, was sudden. In the spring of that year he was confined at home for some weeks by a cold and cough which affected his breast, but occasioned so little interruption to his wonted amusements of reading and writing, that when lord Harcourt visited him the morning before he died, he found him revising for the press a paper, which his lordship conjectured to be the birth- day ode. At noon finding himself disinclined to taste the dinner his servant brought Up, he desired to lean upon his arm from the table to his bed, and in that moment he expired, in the seventieth year of his age. He was interred in South Audley-street chapel.

Unless, with Mr. Mason, we conclude that where Whitehead was unsuccessful, the public was to blame, it will not be easy to prove his right to a very high station among English poets. Yet perhaps he did not so often fall short from a defect of genius, as from a timidity which inclined him to listen too frequently to the corrections of his friends, and to believe that what was first written could never be the best. Although destitute neither of invention nor ease, he repressed both by adhering, like his biographer, to certain standards of taste which the age would not accept, and like him too, consoled himself in the hope of some distant sera when his superior worth should be acknowledged. As a prose writer, he has given proofs of classical taste and reading in his “Observations on the Shield of Æneas,” originally published in Dodsley’s Museum, and afterwards annexed to Warton’s Virgil; and of genuine and delicate humour in three papers of The World, No. 12, 19, and 58, which he reprinted in the edition of his Works, published in 1774.

, an ingenious English philosopher, was born at Congleton in the county of Cheshire, the 10t.h of April 1713, being the son of a clock and watchmaker there. Of the early part of his life but little is known, he who dies at an advanced age leaving few behind him to communicate anecdotes of his youth. On his quitting school, where it seems the education he received was very defective, he was bred by his father to his own profession, in which he soon gave hopes of his future eminence.

It was very early in life that, from his vicinity to the many stupendous phenomena in Derbyshire, which were constantly presented to his observation, his attention was excited to inquire into the various causes of them. His father, who was a man of an inquisitive turn, encouraged him in every thing that tended to enlarge the sphere of his knowledge, and occasionally accompanied him in his subterraneous researches.

At about the age of 2 1 his eagerness after new ideas carried him to Dublin, having heard of an ingenious piece of mechanism in that city, being a clock with certain curious appendages, which he was very desirous of seeing, and no less so of conversing with the maker. On his arrival, however, he could neither procure a sight of the former, nor draw the least hint from the latter concerning it. Thus disappointed, he fell upon an expedient for accomplishing his design; and accordingly took up his residence in the house of the mechanic, paying the more liberally for his board, as he had hopes from thence of more readily obtaining the indulgence wished for. He was accommodated with a room directly over that in which the favourite piece was kept carefully locked up; and he had not long to wait for his gratification, for the artist, while one day employed in examining his machine, was suddenly called down stairs; which the young inquirer happening to overhear, softly slipped into the room, inspected the machine, and, presently satisfying himself as to the secret, escaped undiscovered to his own apartment. His end thus compassed, he shortly after hid the artist farewell, and returned to his father in England.

About two or three years after his return from Ireland he left Congleton, and entered into business for himself at Derby, where he soon got into great employment, and distinguished himself very much by several ingenious pieces of mechanism, both in his own regular line of business and in various other respects, as in the construction of curious thermometers, barometers, and other philosophical instruments, as well as in ingenious contrivances for water-works, and the erection of various larger machines being- consulted in almost all the undertakings in Derbyshire, and in the neighbouring counties, where the aid of superior skill, in mechanics, pneumatics, and hydraulics, was requisite.

In this manner his time was fully and usefully employed in the country, till, in 1775, when the act passed for the better regulation of the gold coin, he was appointed stamper of the money-weights; an office conferred upon him altogether unexpectedly and without solicitation. Upon this occasion he removed to London, where be spent the remainder of his days in the constant habits of cultivating some useful parts of philosophy and mechanism. And here too his house became the constant resort of the ingenious and scientific at large, of whatever nation or rank, and this to such a degree as very often to impede him in the regular prosecution of his own speculations. In 1778 Mr. Whitehurst published his “Inquiry into the original State and Formation of the Earth;” of which a second edition appeared in 1786, considerably enlarged and improved; and a third in 1792. This was the labour of many years; and the numerous investigations necessary to its completion were in themselves also of so untoward a nature as at times, though he was naturally of a strong constitution, not a little to prejudice his health. When he first entered upon this species of research it was not altogether with a view to investigate the formation of the earth, but in part to obtain such a competent knowledge of subterraneous geography as might become subservient to the purposes of human life, by leading mankind to the discovery of many valuable substances which lie concealed in the lower regions of the earth.

May the 13th, 1779, he was elected and admitted a fellow of the royal society. He was also a member of some other philosophical societies, which admitted him of their respective bodies without his previous knowledge; but so remote was he from any thing that might savour of ostentation, that this circumstance was known only to a very few of his most confidential friends. Before he was admitted a member of the royal society, three several papers of his had been inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, viz. Thermometrical Observations at Derby, in vol. LVII. an Account of a Machine for raising Water at Oulton in Cheshire, in vol. LXV.; and Experiments on ignited Substances, in vol. LXVI.; which three papers were printed afterwards in the collection of his works in 1792.

In 1783 he made a second visit to Ireland, with a view to examine the Giant’s Causeway, and other northern parts of that island, which he found to be chiefly composed of volcanic matter; an account and representations of which are inserted in the latter editions of his Inquiry. During this excursion he erected an engine for raising water from a well to the summit of a hill in a bleaching-ground at TuJlidoi in the county of Tyrone: it is worked by a current of water, and for its utility is perhaps unequalled in any country.

In 1787 he published “An Attempt toward obtaining invariable Measures of Length, Capacity, and Weight, from the Mensuration of Time,” His plan is, to obtain a measure of the greatest length that conveniency will permit, from two pendulums whose vibrations are in the ratio of 2 to 1, and whose lengths coincide nearly with the English standard in whole numbers. The numbers which he has chosen shew much ingenuity. On a supposition that the length of a seconds pendulum, in the latitude of London, is 39-i inches, the length of one vibrating 42 times in a minute must be 80 inches; and of another vibrating 84 times in a minute must be 20 inches; and their difference, 60 inches, or 5 feet, is his standard measure. By the experiments, however, the difference between the lengths of the two pendulum rods was found to be only 59.892 inches, instead of 60, owing to the error in the assumed length of the seconds pendulum, 39^ inches being greater than the truth, which ought to be 3) very nearly. By this expement Mr. Whitehurst obtained a fact, as accurately as may he in a thing of this nature, viz. the difference between the lengths of two pendulum rods whose vibrations are known; a datum from whence may be obtained, by calculation, the true lengths of pendulums, the spaces through which heavy bodies fall in a given time, and many other particulars relating to the doctrine of gravitation, the figure of the earth, &c. &c. The work concludes with several directions, shewing how the measure of length may be applied to determine the measures of capacity and weight; and with some tables of the comparative weights and measures of different nations; the uses of which, in philosophical and mercantile affairs, are self-evident.

Though Mr. Whitehurst for several years felt himself gradually declining, yet his ever-active mind remitted not of its accustomed exertions. Even in his last illness, before being confined entirely to his chamber, he was proceeding at intervals to complete a treatise on chimneys, ventilation, and the construction of garden-stoves, announced to the public in 1782; and containing, 1. some account of the properties of the air, and the laws of fluids; 2. their application and use in a variety of cases relative to the construction of chimneys, and the removal of such defects as occasion old chimneys to smoke; 3. modes of ventilating elegant rooms, without any visible appearance or deformity, calculated for the preservation of pictures, prints, furniture, and fine cieliugs, from the pernicious effects of stagnant air, smoke of candles, &c. 4. methods of ventilating counting-houses and workshops, wherein many people, candles, or lamps, are employed likewise hospitals, jails, stables, &.c. 5. a philosophical inquiry into the construction of garden-stoves, employed in the culture of exotic plants; 6. a description of some other devices, tending to promote the health and comfort of human life. The manuscripts and drawings, since his death, have been in the hands of several of his friends, and were published by Dr. Willan in 1794.

Mr. Whitehurst had been at times subject to slight attacks of the gout; and he had for several years felt himself gradually declining. By an attack of that disease in his stomach, after a struggle of two or three months, it put an end to his laborious and useful life, on the 18th of February 1788, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, at his house in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, being the same house where another eminent self-taught philosopher, Mr. James Ferguson, had immediately before him lived and died. He was interred in St. Andrew’s burying- ground in Gray’s-inn-lahe, where Mrs. Whitehurst had been interredin Nov. 1784. In Jan. 1745 he married this lady, Elizabeth, daughter of the rev. George Gretton, rector of Trusley and Daubery, in Derbyshire; a woman ever mentioned with pleasure by those who knew her best, as among the first of female characters. Her talents and education were very respectable; which enabled her to be useful in correcting some parts of his writings. He had only one child by her, and that died dn the birth.

However respectable Mr. Whitehurst may have been in mechanics, and those parts of natural science which he more immediately cultivated, he was of still higher account with his acquaintance and friends on the score of his moral qualities. To say nothing of the uprightness and punctuality of his dealings in all transactions relative to business; few men have been known to possess more benevolent affections than he, or, being possessed of such, to direct them more judiciously to their proper ends. He was a philanthropist in the truest sense of that word. Every thing tending to the good of his kind, he was on all occasions, and particularly in cases of distress, zealous to forward, considering nothing foreign to him as a man that relates to man. Though well known to many of the great, he never once stooped to flattery, being a great enemy to every deviation from truth.

In person fee was somewhat above the middle stature, rather thin than otherwise, and of a countenance expressive at once of penetration aod mildness. His fine grey locks, unpolluted by art, gave a venerable air to his whole appearance. In dress he was plain, in diet temperate, in his general intercourse with mankind, easy and obliging. In company he was cheerful or grave alike, according to the dictates of the occasion; with now and then a peculiar species of humour about him, delivered with such gravity of manner and utterance, that those who knew him but slightly were apt to und-erstand him as serious when he was merely playful. Where any desire of information on subjects in which he was conversant, was expressed, he omitted no opportunity of imparting it. But he never affected, after the manner of some, to know what he did not know; nor, such was his modesty, made he any the least display of what he did know. Considering all useful learning to lie in a narrow compass, and having little relish for the ornamental, he was not greatly given to reading; but from his youth up be observed much, and reflected much; his apprehension was quick, and his judgment clear and discriminating. Unbiassed from education by any earlyadopted systems, he had immediate recourse to nature herself; he attentively studied her, and, by a patience and assiduity indefatigable, attained to a consequence in science not rashly to be hoped for, without regular initiation, by minds of less native energy than his own. He had many friends, and from the great purity and simplicity of his’" manners, few or no enemies; unless it were allowable to call those enemies, who, without detracting from his merit openly, might yet, from a jealousy of his superior knowledge, be disposed to lessen it in private. In short, while the virtues of this excellent man are worthy of 1 being held up as a pattern of imitation to mankind in general; those in particular, who pride themselves in their learning and science, may see confirmed in him, what among other observations they may have overlooked in an old author, that lowly meekness, joined to great endowments, shall compass many fair respects, and, instead of aversion or scorn, be ever waited on with love and veneration.

, a learned English lawyer, was descended of a good family near Oakingham, in Berkshire, and born in London, November the 28th, 1570. He was educated in Merchant Taylors’ school, elected scholar of St. John’s college, in Oxford, in 1588, and July 1, 1594, took the degree of bachelor of civil law. He afterwards settled in the Middle Temple, became summer-reader of that house in the 17th year of king James I. a knight, member of parliament for Woodstock in 1620, chief justice of Chester, and at length one of the justices of the king’s bench. Kitig Charles I. said of him, that he was “a stout, wise, and learned man, and one who knew what belongs to uphold magistrates and magistracy in their dignity.” In Trinity term 1632, he fell ill of a cold, which so increased upon him that he was advised to go in the country; on which he took leave of his brethren the judges and serjeants, saying, “God be with you, I shall never see you again;” and this without the least disturbance or trouble of his thoughts; and soen after he came into the country he died, June 22. “On his death,” says his son, “the king lost as good a subject, his country as good a patriot, the people as just a 'judge, as ever lived. Ail honest men lamented the loss ui huri: no man in his age left behind him a more honoured memory. His reason was clear and strong, and his learning deep and general. He had the Latin tongue so perfect, that sitting judge of assize at Oxford, when some foreigners, persons of quality, being there, and coming to the court to see the manner of our proceedings in matters of justice, this judge caused them to sit down, and briefly repeated the heads of his charge to the grand jury in good and elegant Latin, and thereby informed the strangers and the scholars of the ability of our judges, and the course of our proceedings in matters of law and justice. He understood the Greek very well, and the Hebrew, and was versed in the Jewish histories, and exactly knowing in the history of his own country, and in the pedigrees of most persons of honour and quality in the kingdom, and was much conversant in the studies of antiquity and heraldry. He was not excelled by, any in the knowledge of his own profession of the common law of England^ wherein his knowledge of the civil law (whereof he was a graduate in Oxford) was a help to him. His learned arguments both at the bar and bench will confirm ­this truth.” He was interred at Fawley near High Wyr comb in Bucks, where a monument was erected to him by his son. There are extant of his: 1. Several speeches in parliament, particularly one in a book entitled “The Sovereign’s Prerogative and the Subject’s Privileges discussed, &c. in the 3d and 4th year of king Charles I. London, 1657, in fol. 2. Lectures or readings in the Middle Temple hall, August the 2d, 1619, and on the statute on 21 Henry VIII. c. 13. in the Ashmolean library at Oxford. 3. Of the antiquity, use, and ceremony of lawful combats in England, formerly in the library of Ralph Sheldon, of Beoly, esq. and since printed with other pieces by him, among Hearne’s” Curious Discourses."

, son of the preceding, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Edward Bulstrode, of Hugeley, or Hedgley Buistrode, in Buckinghamshire, esq. was born August 6, 1605, in Fleet-street, London, at the house of sir George Crooke, serjeant-at-law, his mother’s uncle. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and in 1620 went to St. John’s college, Oxford, of which Dr. Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was then president. Laud was his father’s contemporary and intimate friend, and shewed him particular kindness; and Whitelocke afterwards made an acknowledgment of it, in refusing, when that prelate was brought to trial for his life, to be one of the commissioners appointed to draw up a charge against him. He left the university before he had taken a degree, and went to the Middle Temple, where, by the help of his father, he became eminent for his skill in the common law as well as in other studies. We find him also one of the chief managers of the royal masque which was exhibited by the inns of court in February 1633,^ before Charles I. and his queen, and their court, at Whitehall.

In 1640 Mr. Whitelodke was chosen a burgess for Marlow in Buckinghamshire, in the long parliament; and was appointed chairman of the committee for drawing up the charges against the earl of Strafford, and one of the managers against him at his trial. All the papers relative to the proceedings against the earl were drlivered into Mr. Whitelocke’s custody: but a very material one happening to be missing, which had been previously conveyed away in a private manner, this brought a suspicion of treachery on Whitelocke, though it is said he was sufficiently cleared afterwards, when that paper was found in the king’s cabinet at the battle of Naseby, and proved to have been conveyed away by lord Digby.

Of the previous conduct and principles of Whitelocke, we are only told that he was often consulted by Hampden when he came to be prosecuted for refusing the payment of ship-money; and that at the beginning of the commotions in Scotland, when solicited in behalf of the covenanters, his advice was, not to foment these differences, far less to encourage a foreign nation against thrir natural prince. About the beginning of the first session of the long parliament, a debate arose respecting writs of habeas corpus, upon which Mr. Selden and other members, who had been committed for their freedom of speech in the parliament of 1628, demanded to be bailed, and had been refused. This svas so far aggravated by some, that they moved that Selden and the rest might have reparation out of the estates of those judges who then sat on tht king’s bench; but when they named, as the obnoxious judges, Hyde, Jones, and Whitelocke, our young member stood up in defence of his father, and vindicated him with great spirit. Except in the case of Strafford, a considerable degree of moderation at first marked his conduct. During the debates in the House of Commons on the question, whether the power of the nSilitia was in the king or in the parliament, he gave it as his opinion that it was not either in the king or parliament separately, but in both conjointly; and when 'it was afterwards debated, whether an army should not be raised for the defence of parliament, he represented in a very strong manner the miseri s of a civil war. As to the origin of the present state of affairs, he says, “It is strange to note how we have insensibly slid into this beginning of a civil war, by one unexpected accident after another, as waves of the sea, which have brought us thus far; and we scarce know how, but from paper combats, by declarations, remonstrances, protestations, notes, messages, answers, and replies, we are now come to the question of raising forces, and naming a general, and officers of an army.” After many other remarks of a similar kind, he added, “Yet I am not for a tame resignation of our religion, lives, and liberties, into the hands of our adversaries, who seek to devour us. Nor do I think it inconsistent with your great wisdom, to prepare for a just and necessary defence of them.” Still he recommended them to consider, whether it was not too soon to take up arms; and advised them to try if means might not be found to accommodate matters with the king before they proceeded to extremities. It must have been his opinion that such means could not Ue found, for as soon as the war commenced, Whitelocke adhered closely to the parliamentary party, and accepted the office of deputy-lieutenant of the counties of Bucks and Oxford, in 1642. Having also a company of horse under his command, he dispersed the commissioners. o,f array at Wellington, and then marching to Oxford, it was proposed to fortify that city and appoint him governor but this was prevented by lord Say, for which that nobleman was much censured by the parliamentary party. We find Whitelocke again among the forces which opposed the king at Brentford, and being now at open war with his sovereign, his seat at Fawley-court was plundered by a party of royalists. In January 1643, he was appointed one of ttie commissioners to treat of peace with the king at Oxford, and there seems no reason to doubt that he was not only active, but sincere in his efforts to accomplish thjs purpose. Why they were not more successful mus be sought ift the conduct of those who employed him, Against which he seems to have ventured to remonstrate Adhering, however, still to the cause he had espoused, he was one of the laymen appoiated to sit in the Westminster assembly of divines and there, as well as in parliament, was the strenuous opponent of those who were for asserting the divine right of presbytery.

In 1644 he was constituted lieutenant-governor of Windsor castle, and the same year he was again appointed one, of the commssioners for peace at Oxford. On this occasion the king expressed much esteem for Mr. vVmtelocke, and Mr. Holies, and said he believed them sincere in their wishes for peace. As they were about to take leave, the king desired they would set down in writing what they apprehended might be proper for him to reuiru in answer to the propositions that they had brought from the parliament, and what they thought most likely to promote a peace between turn and them. At first they were somewhat averse to this, thinking it rather inconsisU'n; i.i the trust repostd in tu m by parliament. But the king urging it, they at length complied with his request, and going into a private room, and disgiusing his huuVinteiocke wrote down wli.it ne and Holies judge i iu Ik iu r the sub-, stance of his majesty’s answer to t-,o piUjVi^iLs of peace they had brought, and left it upon the ublcj of his withdrawing-room. Fair as this proceeding might be considered by men really disposed to peace, it met with a very different reception from the parliamentary party. Lord Savile, who was then with the king at Oxford, but afterwards went over to the parliament, having heard of the transaction, sent to the House of Commons in July 1645, an accusation of high treason against Whitelocke and Holies. They were accordingly prosecuted, but after a long and strict examination, were acquitted by a vote of the House, July 21, of any misdemeanour in this business; and were left at liberty to prosecute Lord Savile, then a prisoner in the Tower, for the injury he had done them in this accusation. About this time Whitelocke was nominated attorney of the dutchy of Lancaster; and in 1645 was made steward of the revenues of Westminster college, and one of the commissioners of the admiralty. The same year he was appointed one of the commissioners at the treaty of Uxbricige, and attended there.

Many of the presbyterian clergy who had lately complained of the exorbitant power exercised by the bishops, having now gained the ascendant, were desirous of shewing the nation what it gained by the change, and the assembly of divines petitioned the House of Commons that “in every presbytery, or presbyterian congregation, the pastor, or ruling elders might have the power of excommunication, and the power of suspending such as they should judge ignorant or scandalous persons from the sacrament.” But Whitelocke, among others, zealously opposed this, and concluded one of his speeches with saying, “The best excommunication is, for pastors, elders, and people, to excommunicate sin out of their own hearis and conversations; to suspend themselves from all works of iniquity; this is a power, which put in execution, through the assistance of the Spirit of God, will prevent all disputes about excommunication and suspension from the sacrament.”

In the same year (1645) the House of Commons ordered, that all the books and manuscripts of the lord keeper Littleton (whose estate had been sequestered) should be bestowed upon Mr. Whitelocke; and the speaker was directed to issue his warrant for that purpose. In his “Memorials” Whitelocke says, “he undertook this business, as he had done others of the like kind, to preserve those books and manuscripts from being sold, which the sequestrators would have done; but he saved them, to have the present use of them; and resolving, if God gave them an happy accommodation, to restore them to the owner, or to some of his family. 17 On other occasions, Whitelocke shewed his regard to the interests of literature, particularly in preventing the king’s library and collection of medals from being sold or embezzled.” Being informed,“-he says,” of a design in some to have them sold and transported beyond sea, which I thought would be a dishonour and damage to our nation, and to all scholars therein; and fearing that in other hands they might be more subject to embezzling, and being willing to preserve them for public use, I did accept of the trouble of being library keeper at St. James’s, and therein was encouraged and much per* suaded to it by Mr. Selden, who swore that if I did not undertake the charge of them, all those rare monuments of antiquity, those choice books and manuscripts, would be lost; and there were not the like of them, except only in the Vatican, in any other library in Christendom. "He was also very serviceable in preserving the herald’s office, and in promoting the ordinance for settling and regulating the same. And while general Fairfax was engaged in the siege of Oxford, he sent for Whitelocke, who was admitted into the council of war, and used all his interest to procure honourable terms for the garrison, and to preserve the colleges and libraries from being plundered.

Whitelocke was one of those who opposed in the House of Commons the disbanding of the parliamentary army, and from this time was much courted by Cromwell and his adherents. He says himself that he resorted much with sir Henry Vane, and “other grandees of that party.” As to Cromwell, he had been once consulted by general Essex’s party, who were jealous of him, whether he could not be proceeded against as an incendiary. Whitelocke was of opinion that he could not, but at the same time expressed his sentiments^of him in the following language: “I take lieut.-gen. Cromwell to be a gentleman of quick and subtle parts, and one who hath (especially of late) gained no small interest in the House of Commons, nor is he wanting of friends in the House of Peers, nor of abilities in himself to manage his own part or defence to the best advantage. If this be so, it will be the more requisite to be well prepared against him before he be brought upon the stage, lest the issue of the business be not answerable to your expectations.” Wood says that Whitelocke gave Oliver. notice of this plot against him, but Whitelocke attributes the discovery to some present who were false brethren, and informed Cromwell of all that passed among them. Be this as it may, he was now quite in the confidence of Cromwell and his adherents. As he had attended at the siege of Oxford, so he did also at that of Wailingfoud, where he acted the part of secretary, and kept a strong garrison in his seat of Fawley-court, for the use of the prevailing powers. In Dec. 1646, we find him earnestly promoting the ordinances for taking away all coercive power of committees; and all arbitrary power from both or either of the houses of parliament, or any of their committees, in any matter between party and party, judging that to be for the honour of parliament, and the ease and right of the people; and being well skilled in foreign affairs, he was usually in every committee relating to them. At the same time he did not neglect his profession, but attended the assizes, and was much employed. In Sept. 1647, the city of London were very desirous of appointing him to the office of recorder, but this he declined, as well as that of speaker of the House of Commons. He was soon after appointed one of the commissioners of the great seal, and sworn into that office April 12, 1648, with a salary of 1000l. a year. He now resigned his place of attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, which, -with his practice, amounted to more than he gained by his new office, while even in it he soon began to think himself insecure, and looked upon the self-denying ordinance, as it was called, to be contrived to remove him. When the army began to controul the House of Commons, he made some of those salutary reflections, which, it is to be regretted, did not occur sooner to him. “We may take notice,” said he, “of the uncertainty of worldly affairs; when the parliament and their army had subdued their common enemy, then they quarrelled among themselves, the army against the parliament; when they were pretty well pieced together again, then the apprentices and others made an insurrection against the parliament and army. Thus we were in continual perplexities and dangers, and so it will be with all who shall engage in the like troubles.” The fate of the unhappy king being determined, Whitelocke was appointed one of the committee of thirty-eight, who were to draw up a charge against his tnajesty; but he never attended, as he totally disapproved of that measure, and therefore went into the country. He returned to London, however, while the king’s trial was pending, but took no concern with it, and refused afterwards to approve the proceedings of the high court of justice, as it was called, His memorandum on the king’s death is thus expressed: “Jan. 30, 1 went not to the House, but stayed all day at home in my study and at my prayers, that this day’s work might not so displease God, as to bring prejudice to this poor afflicted nation.” That he was sincere in all this, or in some of his former professions respecting peace, seems very doubtful, for on Feb. 1 following, he declared in the House of Commons his disapprobation of the vote of Dec.

;6i namely, “That his majesty’s concessions to the propositions of the parliament, were sufficient grounds for sejtling the peace of the kingdom.” He also drew up the act for abolishing the House of Lords, although he had declared his opinion against it, and also introduced a declaration to satisfy the minds of the people as to the proceedings of parliament. \baToIqms dorim &v;

'tovjOn Feb. 8, he was appointed one of the three lords commissioners of the new great seal of the commonwealth, pf England, He appears disposed to apologize for accepting this office, and his apology is a curious one; “because he was already very deeply engaged with this party: that, dje business to be undertaken by him was the execution of law and justice, without which men could, not live one by another; a thing of absolute necessity to be done.” On the 14th of the same month, he was chosen one of the thirty persons who composed the council of state. A few months after he was elected high-stewardof Oxford. The commissioners of the great seal being about this time in want uf a convenient dwelling, parliament granted them the duke of Buckingham’s house. In Jane, Whitelocke made a learned speech to the new judges in the court of Common-pleas, who were then sworn into their offices. In November, he opposed a motion made in the House of Com* inons, that no lawyers should sit in parliament; and in 1650 made a very learned speech in the House, in defence of the antiquity and excellence of the laws of England.

In vSept. 1651 Whitelocke was appointed, with three other members of parliament, to go out of town to meet Cromwell, then on his way to London, and congratulate him upon his victory at Worcester. Shortly after Whitelocke was. present at a; meeting at the speaker’s house, where several members of parliament, and principal officers of the army were assembled, by Cromwell’s desire, to consider about settling the affairs of the kingdom (See Cromwell, p. 57), and soon after he had a private conference in the Park with the usurper, who seemed to pay much regard to his advice, but, not finding him so pliable as he could wish, contrived to get him out of the way by an ap< parently honourable employment, and therefore procured him to be sent ambassador to Christina, queen of Sweden. This appointment was preceded by some singular circumstances very characteristic of the times. Whoever has looked into Whitelocke' s “Memorials” will perceive the language of religion and devotion very frequently introduced. That in this he was sincere, we have no reason to doubt,“' but it would appear that he had not come up exactly to the standard of piety established under the usurped government. When the council of state reported to the parliament that they had fixed upon Whitelocke as a fit person for the Swedish embassy, a debate arose in the house, and one of the members objected,” that they knew not whether he were a godty man or not,“adding, that” though he might be otherwise qualified, yet, if he were not a godly man, it was not fit to send him ambassador.“To this another member, who was known not to be inferior in godliness to the objector, shrewdly answered,” that godJiness was now in fashion, and taken up in form and words for advantage sake, more than in substance for the truth’s sake; that it was difficult to judge of the trees of godliness or ungodliness, otherwise than by the fruit; that those who knew Whitelocke, and his conversation, were satisfied thathe lived in practice as well as in a profession of godliness; and that it was more becoming a godly man to look into his own heart, and to censure himself, than to take upon him the attribute of God alone, to know the heart of another, and to judge him.“After this curious debate, it was voted,” that the lord commissioner Whitelocke be sent ambassador extraordinary to the queen of Sweden."

Whitelocke accordingly set out from London on this embassy Nov. 2, 1653, and a very few weeks after his departure, Cromwell assumed the supreme authority under the title of lord protector. Whitelocke was received in Sweden with great respect, and supported his character with dignity. Queen Christina, who shewed him many civilities, entertained him not only with politics, but with philosophy; and created him knight of the order of Araarantha, and hence he is sometimes styled sir Bulstrode. He displayed great abilities for negotiation, and concluded a firm alliance between England and Sweden about the beginning of May 1654. In 1772, Dr. Morton, secretary of the Royal Society, published the history of this embassy, under the title of “'A Journal of the Swedish Ambassy, in the years 1653 and 165 4-. From, the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Written by the ambassador the lord commissioner Whhelockv. With an Appendix of Original Papers,” 2 vols. 4to, These papers Dr Morton received from Whitelocke’s grandson, Carieton Whitelocke, of Prior’s wood, near Dublin, esq. This very cunious work may be considered as a necessary addition to his “Memorials,” and contains a large assemblage of facts and characteristic anecdotes illustrative of the times and the principal personages, printed literally from the author’s manuscript.

After his return home he received the thanks of the parliament, and had also 2000l. ordered him for the expenses of his embassy, but according to his own account these favours were not bestowed with a very good grace. He says in the conclusion of the journal of the embassy, “The sum of all was, that, for a most difficult and dangerous work, faith/ully and successfully performed bj Whitelocke, he had little thanks, and no recompense, from those who did employ him; but not long after was rewarded by them with an injury: they put him out of his office of commissioner of the great seal, because he would not betray the rights of the people, and, contrary to his own knowledge, and the knowledge of those who imposed it, execute an ordinance of the Protector and his council, as if it had been a law. But in a succeeding parliament, upon the motion of his noble friend the lord Bmghill, Whitelocke had his arrears of disbursement paid him, and some recompense of his faithful service allowed unto him.” it was indeed not until 1657 that the 2000l. above-mentioned was paid, with the addition of 500l. which is probably what he means by “some recompense.” The ordinance to which he alludes, was one framed by Cromwell, after the dissolution of his little parliament, for what he pretended was “the better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of t4*e high court of Chancery.” Whitelocke, finding his opposition to this in vain, resigned the great seal in June 1655. In Jan. 1656, he was chosen speaker of the House of Common^ pro lemporc, during the indisposition of sir Thomas Widdrington, who had been appointed to that office. During the remainder of Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate, Whitelocke Appears to have been in and out of favour with him, as he more or less supported his measures. The last instance of Oliver’s favour to him, was his signing a warrant for a patent to make him a viscount, but Whitelocke did not think it convenient to accept of this honour, although he had received his writ of summons as one of the lords of the “other house,” by the title of Bulstrode lord Whitelocke. M,^ Jc j:&&&&<<

Richard, the new protector, made him one of the keepers of the great seal, but this ceased when the council of officers had determined to displace Richard, on which occasion Whitelocke became one of their council of state. Puring this confusion, he was accused of holding a correspondence with sir Edward Hyde, and other friends of Charles II. which he positively denied, and by joining in the votes for renouncing the pretended title of Charles Stuart, and the whole line of king James, and of every other person as a single person pretending to the government of these realms, as well as by other measures, he endeavoured to prove his attachment to the republican cause. In the rest of his conduct he seems, even by his own account, to have been irresolute, and inconsistent, or if consistent in any thing, it was in so yielding to circuraf^ances as not to appear very obnoxious to either party. As he had, however, attached himself so long to the enemies of the king, the utmost he could expect was to be allowed to sink into obscurity. Yet it was by a small majority only that he was included in the act of pardon and oblivion which passed after the restoration. When he had obtained this, he was admitted into the presence of Charles II. who received him very graciously, and dismissed him in these extraordinary words; “Mr. Whitelocke, go into the country; don't trouble yourself any more about state affairs; and take care of your wife and your sixteen children.” This must have mortified a man who had acted so conspicuous a part in state affairs. He took his majesty’s advice, however, and spent the remaining fifteen years of hi$ life at Chilton-park in Wiltshire, and died there January 28, 1676. He was interred in the church of Fawley in Buckinghamshire.

Mr. Whitelocke was thrice married, first to Miss Bennet, of the city of London, by whom he had a son James, who was settled at Trumpington near Cambridge, and left two sons, both of whom died unmarried; His second wife was Frances, daughter of lord Willoughby of Parhii'm, by whom he had nine children. His third wife was Mrs. Wilson, a widow, whose maaiden name was Carleton. She survived him, and by her also he had several children. The eldest of this last marriage inherited Chiltbn Patfe. J

The editor of his “Memorials” give* him this character. “He not only served the state in several stations and plaices of the highest trust and importance botn at *Wn‘e and in foreign countries, and acquitted himself with success and reputation answerable to each respective character; but likewise conversed with books, and made himself a large provision from his studies and contemplation. Like that noble Roman, Portius Cato, as described by Nepos, he was `Reipublicae peritus, et jurisconsultus, et’nfttgnus iniperator, et probabilis orator, cupidissimus titerafttuf:' a statesman and learned in the law, a great commander, an eminent speaker in parliament, and an exquisite scholar. He had all along so much business, one would not imagine he ever had leisure for books yet who considers his studies might believe he had been always shut up with his friend Selden, and the dust of action never fallen on his gown. His relation to the public was such throughout all the revolutions, that few mysteries of state could be to him any secret. Nor was the felicity of his pen less considerable than his knowledge of affairs, or did less service to the cause he espoused. So we find the words apt and proper for the occasion; the style clear, easy, and wichout the least force or affectation of any kind, as is shewn in his speeches, his narratives, his descriptions, and in every place where the subject deserves the least care or consideration.” Lord Clarendon has left this testimony in favour of Whitelocke: whom, numbering among his early friends in life, he calls, a man of eminent parts and great learning out of his profession, and in his profession of signal reputation. “And though,” says the noble historian, “he did afterwards bow his knee to Baal, and so swerved from his allegiance, it was with less rancour and malice than other men. He never led, but followed; and was rather carried away with the torrent than swam with the stream; and failed through those infirmities, which less than a general defection and a prosperous rebellion could never have discovered.” Lord Clarendon has elsewhere described him, as “from the beginning concurring with the parliament, without any inclinations to their persons or principles and,” says he, “he had the same reasons afterwards not to separate from them. All his estate was in their quarters and he had a nature, that could not bear or submit to be undone ‘though to his friends, who were commissioners for the king, he used his old openness, and professed his detestation of all the proceedings of his party, yet could not leave them.’”

The first edition of his “Memorials of the English Affairs,” was published in 1682, and the second, with many additions and a better Lulex, in 1732: called “An historical Account of what passed from the beginning of the reign of king Charles the First to king Charles the Second his happy Jlestauration; containing the public transactions civil and military, together with the private consultations and secrets of the Cabinet,” in folio. Besides these memorials, he wrote also “Memorials of the English Affairs, from the supposed expedition of Brute to this island, to the end of the reign of king James the First. Published from his original manuscript, with some account of his life and writings, by William Penn, esq. governor of Pennsylvania; and a preface by James Welwood, M.D. 1709,” folio. There are many speeches and discourses of Mr. Whitelocke to be found in his “Memorials of English Affairs,” and in other collections. Oldmixon, who stands at the head of infamous historians, has drawn a comparison between Whitelocke and Clarendon; there is also an anonymous pamphlet entitled “Clarendon and Whitelocke farther compared,” which was written by Mr. John Davys, some time of Harthall, Oxford. It ought to be remarked that our author’s “Memorials” are his Diary, and that he occasionally entered facts in it when they came to his knowledge but not always on those days in which they were transacted. This has led his readers into some anachronisms. It has been remarked also that his “Memorials” would have been much more valuable, if his wife had not burnt many of his papers. As they are, they contain a vast mass of curious information, and are written with impartiality.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of queen Elizabeth and king James, and one of the most intrepid supporters of the constitution of the church, of England, was descended of the ancient family of Whitgift in Yorkshire. His grandfather was John Whitgift, gent, whose son was Henry, a merchant of Great Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Another of his sons was Robert Whitgi ft, who was abbot de Wellow or Welhove juxta Grimsby in the said county, a monastery of Black Canons dedicated to the honour of St. Augustin. He was a man memorable, not only for the education of our John Whitgift, but also for his saying concerning the Romish religion. He declared in the hearing of his nephew, that “they and their religion could not long continue, because,” said he, “I have read the whole Scripture over and over, and could never find therein that our religion was founded by God.” And as a proof of this opinion, the abbot alleged that saying of our Saviour, “Every plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Henry, the father of our archbishop, had six sons, of whom he was the eldest, and one daughter, by Anne Dy newel, a young gentlewoman of a good family at Great Grimsby. The names of the other five sons were William, George, Philip, Richard, and Jeffrey; and that of the daughter Anne.

John was born at Great Grimsby in 1530, according to his biographers Strype and Panle, but according to Mr. Francis Thynne, quoted by Strype, in 1533: the former, however, is most probably the right date. He was sent early for education to St. Antony’s school, London, then a very eminent one, and was lodged in St. Paul’s churchyard, at his aunt’s, the daughter of Michael Thaller, ar verger of that church. Imbibing very young a relish of the doctrine of the reformation, he had of course no liking to the mass; so that though his aunt had often urged him togo with her to mass, and procured also some of the canons of St. Paul’s to persuade him to it, he still refused. By this she was so much exasperated, that she resolved to entertain him no longer under her roof, imputing all her losses and domestic misfortu-nes to her harbouring of such an heretic within her doors; and at parting told him, “that she thought at first she had received a saint into her house, but now she perceived he was a Devil.”

He now returned home to his father in Lincolnshire; and his uncle, the abbot, finding that he had made some progress in grammatical learning, advised that he should be sent to the university. Accordingly he entered of Queen’s college, Cambridge, about 1548, but soon after removed to Pembroke- hall, where the celebrated John Bradford, the martyr, was his tutor. He had not been here long before he was recommended by his tutor and Mr. Grindal (then fellow, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) to the master, Nicholas Ridley, by which means he was made scholar of that house, and chosen bibleclerk. These advantages were the more acceptable to him, as his father had suffered some great losses at sea, and was less able to provide for him. When Bradford left Cambridge in 15.50, Whitgift was placed under the care of Mr. Gregory Garth, who continued his tutor while he remained at Pensbroke-hall, which was until he took his degree of bachelor of arts in 1553-4. The following year, he was unanimously elected fellow of Peter-house, and commenced master of arts in 1557.

Soon after this, as he was recovering from a severe fit of sickness, happened the remarkable visitation of his university by cardinal Pole, in order to discover and expel the heretics, or those inclined to the doctrines of the reformation. To avoid the storm, Whitgift thought of going Abroad, and joining the other English exiles; but Dr. Perne, master of his college, although at that time a professed papist, had such an esteem for him, that he undertook to screen him from the commissioners, and thus he was induced to remain; nor was he deceived in his confidence in Dr. Perne’s friendship, who being then vicechancellor, effectually protected him from all inquiry, not withstanding the very strict severity of the visitation. In 1560 Mr. Whitgift entered into holy orders, and preached his first sermon at St. Mary’s with great and general approbation. The same year he was appointed chaplain to Cox, bishop of Ely, who gave him the rectory of Teversham in Cambridgeshire. In 1563 he proceeded bachelor of divinity, and Matthew Button, then fellow of Trinity-college, being appointed regius professor of divinity, the same year Whitgift succeeded him as lady Margaret’s professor of divinity. The subject of his lectures was the book of Revelations and the whole Epistle to the Hebrews, which he expounded throughout. These lectures were prepared by him for the press; and sir George Paule intimates, that they were likely in his time to be published; but whatever was the reason, they have never appeared. Strype tells us, that he saw this manuscript of Dr. Whitgift' s own hand -writing, in the possession of Dr. William Payne, minister of Whitechapel London; and that after his death it was intended to be purchased by Dr. John More, lord bishop of Ely. This manuscript contained likewise his thesis, when he afterwards kept his act for doctor of divinity, on this subject, that “the Pope is Antichrist.”

Soon after this he joined his brother professor, Hutton, and several heads of colleges, in a petition to sir William Cecil, their chancellor, for an order to regulate the election of public officers, the want of which created great disturbance in the university at that time. Two years after this he distinguished himself so eminently in the pulpir, that sir Nicholas Bacon, then lord- keeper, sent for him to court to preach before the queen, who heard him with great satisfaction, and made him her chaplain. The same year (1565) being informed that some statutes 'were preparing to enjoin an uniformity of habits, particularly to order the wearing of surplices in the university, he promoted the writing of a joint letter privately to Cecil, earnestly desiring him to stop (if possible) the sending down any such orders, which he perceived would be very unacceptable to the university. But this letter gave so much offence at court, that he found.it necessary to make, an apology for the share he had in it. In the mean time he was so highly esteemed at Cambridge, both as avpreacher and a restorer of order and discipline there, that in June of the following year, the university granted him a licence under their common seal, to preach throughout the realna, and in July following the salary of his professorship was raised, out of respect to him, from twenty marks to twenty pounds.

He had the year before been a considerable benefactor to Peter-house, where, in 1567, he held the place of president, but was called thence in April to Pembroke-hall, being chosen master of that house, and not long after was appointed regius professor of divinity. In both these prejfertnents he succeeded his old frrend Dr. Hutton, now made dean of York, and to the first was recommended, as Dr. Hutton had been, by Grindal, then bishop of London. But he remained at Pembroke-hall only about three months, for upon the death of Dr. Beauchamp, the queen promoted him to the mastership of Trinity-college. This place was procured for him, chiefly by the interest of sir William Cecil, who, notwithstanding some objections had been made tq his age, secured the appointment. The same year he took his degree of doctor in divinity; and in 1570, having first applied to Cecil for the purpose, he compiled a new body of statutes for the university, which were of great service to that learned community.

This work he finished in August, and the same month was the principal agent in procuring an order from the vice-chancellor and heads of houses, to prohibit the celebrated Cartwright (See Cartwright), who was now Margaret professor, from reading any more lectures without some satisfaction given to them of his principles and opinions. Dr. Whitgift informed the chancellor of this step, and at the same time acquainted him with Cartwright’s principles, and the probable consequences of them, on which he received the chancellor’s approbation of what had been done. Cartwright, having refused to renounce his opinions, was deprived of his professorship; but as he gave out that those opinions were rather suppressed by authority, than refuted by reason, Dr. Whitgift took an effectual method to remove that objection. At the chancellor’s request, he wrote a confutation of some of the chief of Cartwright’s sentiments, and sent them to archbishop Parker, in a letter dated Dec. 29, with an intention to publish them, which, however, was not done untii afterwards when they were combined in his “Answer to the Admonition, &c.” hereafter noticed.

In 1671 Dr. Whitgift served the office, of vice-chancellor. The same year an order was made by the archbishop and bishops, that all those who had obtained faculties to preach, should surrender them before the third of August; and that upon their subscription to the thirty-nine articles, and other constitutions and ordinances agreed upon, new licences shouldbe granted. This being signified to the university, and an order sent, requiring them to call in all the faculties granted before, Whitgift surrendered his former licence, obtained in 1566, and had another granted him in September 1571, in which he was likewise constituted one of the university preachers. In June, in consequence of the queen’s nomination, he had been appointed dean of Lincoln, and in October the archbishop granted him a dispensation to hold with it his prebend of Ely and rectory of Teversham, and any other benefice whatsoever; but in the following year he resigned the rectory of Teversham.

He was now, by particular appointment from the archbishop of Canterbury, writing his “Answer to the Admonition,” which requiring more leisure than his office as master of Trinity college could admit, he desired to leave the university, but this the 'other heads of houses succeeded in preventing. He had a little before expelled Cartwright from his fellowship for not taking orders in due time, according to the statute; and before the expiration of the year 1572 published his “Answer to the Admonition to the Parliament,” 4to. The “Admonition” was drawn up by Field, minister of Aldermary, London, and Mr. Wilcox. As archbishop Parker was the chief person who encouraged Whitgift to undertake the “Answer,” he likewise gave him considerable assistance, and other prelates and learned men were also consulted, and every pains taken to make it, what it has been generally esteemed, as able a defence of the Church of England against the innovations of the puritans, as bishop Jewel’s was against the doctrines of the Church of Rome. A second edition appeared in 1573, with the title “An answer to a certain libel, entitled An Admonition to the Parliament, newly augmented by the author, as by conference shall appear.” To this a reply being published by Cartwright, Dr. Whitgift published his defence, fol. 1574, Cartwright published in 1574, 4to, “The second Reply of T. C. against Dr. Whitgift’s second Answer touching Church-Discipline.” What the opinion of Dr. Whitaker, who was thought to be a favourer of puritawsm, was concerning tjiis book of Mr. Cartwright, will appear from the following passage in a Latin letter of his preserved by Dr. Richard Bancroftand sir George Paule in his “Life of archbishop Whitgift.” “I have read a great part of that book, which Mr. Cartwright hath lately published. I pray God I live not, if I ever saw any thing more loosely written, and almost more <$ildishly. It is true, that for words he hath great store, and those both fine and new; but for matter, as far as I can judge, he is altogether barren. Moreover, he doth not only think per-r versely of the authority of princes in causes ecclesiastical, but also flyeth into the papists holds, from whom he would be thought to dissent with <a. mortal hatred. But in this point he is not to be endured, and in other points also h& borroweth his arguments from the papists. To conclude, as Jerom said of Ambrose, he playeth with words, and is lame in his sentiments, and is altogether unworthy to be confuted by any man of learning.” And Whitgift, being advised by his friends to let Cartwright’s “Second Reply” pass as unworthy of his notice, remained silent.

About the same time, Dr. Whitgift appeared in opposition to a design then meditated, for abolishing pluralities, and taking away the impropriations and tithes from bishops and spiritual (not including temporal) persons, for the better provision of the poorer clergy. He did not, howv ever, proceed farther in this than to express his sentiments in private to the bishop of Ely, who had proposed the scheme, which does not appear to have been brought for-r ward in any other shape, probably in consequence of the arguments he advanced against it. In March 1577 he was made bishop of Worcester; and as this diocese brought him into the council of the marches of Wales, he was presently after appointed vice-president of those marches in the absence of sir Henry Sidney, lord president, and now lord-lieutentxnt of Ireland. In June following he resigned the mastership of Trinity college; and just before procured a letter from the chancellor, in order to prevent the practice then in use, of taking money for the resignation of fellowships.

The queen, as we noticed in our account of archbishop Grindal, had some thoughts of placing Whitgift in that worthy prelate’s room, even in his life-time, and Grindal certainly would have been glad to resign a situation in which his conduct had not been acceptable to the court, and he had at the same time such an opinion of Whitgift as to be very desirous of him for a successor. But Whitgift could not be prevailed upon to consent to an arrangement of this kind, and requested the queen would excuse his acceptance of the office on any terms during the life of Grindal. Grindal, however, died in July 1533, and the queen immediately nominated Whitgift to succeed him as archbishop of Canterbury. On entering on this high office he found it greatly over-rated as to revenues, and was obliged to procure an order for the abatement of lOOl. to him and his successors, on the payment of first fruits, and he shortly after recovered from the queen, as part of the possessions of the archbishopric, Long-Beach Wood, in Kent, which had been many years detained from his predecessor by sir James Croft, comptroller to her majesty’s household. But that in wbich he-was most concerned was to see the established uniformity of the church in so great disorder as it was from thenon-compliance of the puritans, who, taking advantage of his predecessor’s easiness in that respect, were possessed of a great many ecclesiastical benefices and preferments, in which they were supported by some of the principal men at court. He set himself, therefore, with extraordinary zeal and vigour, to reform these infringements of the constitution, for which he had the queen’s express orders. With this view, in December 1583, he moved for an ecclesiastical commission, which was soon after issued to him, with the bishop of London, and several others. For the same purpose, in 1584, he drew up a form of examination, containing twenty-four articles, which he sent to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to summon all such clergy as were suspected of nonconformity, and to require them to answer those articles severally upon oath, ex officio mero, likewise to subscribe to the queen’s supremacy, the book of Common Prayer, and the thirty-nine articles.

At the same time he held conferences with several of the puritans, and by that means brought some to a compliance; but when others appealed from the ecclesiastical commission to the council, he resolutely asserted his jurisdiction., and vindicated his proceedings, even in some cases agahist the opinion of lard BuHeigh, who was his chief friend there. But as archbishop Whitgiit’s conduct has been grossly misrepresented by the puritan historians and by their successors, who are still greater enemies to the church, it may be necessary to enter more io detail on his correspondence with Burleigh, &c. at this time. Some ministers of Ely being suspended for refusing to answer the examination above mentioned, applied to the council, who wrote a letter to the archbishop in their favour, May 2.6, 1583. To this he sent an answer, in the conclusion of which, so well was he persuaded in his own mind of the propriety of his conduct, he told the council, “that rather than grant them liberty to preach, he would chuse to die, or live in prison all the days of his life, rather than be an occasion thereof, or ever consent unto it.” Lord Burleigh, thinking these ministers hardly used in the ecclesiastical commission, advised them not to answer to the articles, except their consciences might suffer them; he at the same time informed the archbishop that he had given such advice, and intimated his dislike of the twenty-four articles, and their proceedings in consequence of them, in several letters. To these the archbishop answered separately, in substance as follows: In a letter dated June 14, from Croydon, he declares himself content to be sacrificed in so good a cause; and that the laws were with him, whatever sir Francis Knollys (who, he said, had little skill) said to the contrary. This alludes to a paper written by sir Francis, treasurer to the queen’s household, in defence of the recusants, and sent to the archbishop. Burleigh, in a second letter, dated July 1, expressing himself in stronger terms against these proceedings, concludes with saying that the articles were branched out into so many circumstances, that he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to trap others; and that this critical sifting of ministers was not to reform, hut to insnare: but, however, upon his request, he would leave them to his authority, nor “thrust his sickle into another man’s harvest.”

To this the archbishop sent an answer, dated July 3, to the following purport That, as touching the twenty-four articles, which his lordship seemed so much to dislike, as written in a Romish style, and smelling of the Romish inquisition, he marvelled at his lordship’s speeches, seeing it was the ordinary course in other courts, as in the starchamber, the courts of the marches, and other places; and that the objection of encouraging the papists by these courses, had neither probability nor likelihood. That as to his lordship’s speech for the two ministers, viz. that they were peaceable, observed the book, denied the things wherewith they were charged, and desired to, be tried, the archbishop demanded, now they were to be tried, why they did refuse it qui male egit odit lucem? That the articles he administered unto them were framed by the most learned in the laws, and who, he dared to say, hated both the Romish doctrine and Romish inquisition; and that he ministered them to the intent only that he might truly understand whether they were such manner of men, or no, as they pretended to be, especially, seeing by public fame they were noted of the contrary, and one of them presented by the sworn men of his parish for his disorders, as he was informed by his official there. That time would not serve him to write much; that he referred the rest to the report of the bearer, trusting his lordship would consider of things as they were, and not as they seeded to be, or as some wonld have them; that he thought it high time to put those to silence who were and had been the instruments of such great discontentment as was pretended; that conscience was no more excuse for them than it was for the papists or anabaptists, in whose steps they walked. He knew, he said, that he was especially sought, and many threatening wordscame to his ears to terrify him from proceeding; that the bishop of Chester (Chaderton) had wrote to him of late, and that in his letter a little paper was inclosed, the copy whereof he sent to his lordship; “You know (said the archbishop) whom he knoweth; but it moves me not; he can do no more than God will permit him. It is strange to understand what devices have beert used to move me to be at some men’s becks;” the particularities of all which he would one day declare to his lordship, and added, that he was content to be sacrificed in so good a cause, “which I will never betray nor give over, God, her majesty, all the laws, my own conscience and duty, being with me.” He concludes with beseeching Burleigh not to be discomfited, but continue; the cause was good, and the complaints being general, were vain, and without cause, as would appear when they descended to particularities.

To encourage his lordship farther, the archbishop, on June 24, sent him a schedule of the number of; puritan preachers in his province, with their decrees, confronting them with the nonconformists, by which it appeared that there were seven hundred and eighty-six conformists, and only forty-nine recusants.

Lord Burleigh, in another letter, still insisting that he would not call his proceedings rigorous and captious, but that they were scarcely charitable, the archbishop sent him, July 15, a defence of his conduct in a paper entitled “Reasons why it is convenient that those which are culpable in the articles ministered judicially by the archbishop of Canterbury and others, her majesty’s commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, shall be examined of the same articles upon their oaths.” In this paper he maintained, 1. That by the ecclesiastical laws remaining in force, sucli articles may be ministered: this is so clear by all, that it was never hitherto called into doubt, 2. That this manner of proceeding has been tried against such as were vehemently suspected, presented, and detected by their neighbours, or whose faults were notorious, as by open preaching, since there hath been any law ecclesiastical in this realm. 3. For the discovery of any popery it hath been used in king Edward’s time, in the deprivation of sundry bishops at that time, as it may appear by the processes, although withal for the proof of those things that they denied, witnesses were also used. 4. In her majesty’s most happy reign, even/rom the beginning, this manner of proceeding has been used against the one extreme and the other as general, against all the papists, and against all those who would not follow the Book of Common Prayer established by authority; namely, against Mr. Sampson and others; and the lords of the privy council committed certain to the Fleet, for counselling sir John Southwood and other papists not to answer upon articles concerning their own facts and opinions, ministered unto them by her highness’s commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, except a fame thereof were first proved. 5. It is meet also to be done ex officio mero, because upon the confession of such offences no pecuniary penalty is set down whereby the informer (as in other temporal courts) may be considered for his charge and pains, so that such faults would else be wholly unreformed. 6. This course is not against charity, for it is warranted by law as necessary for reforming of offenders and disturbers of the unity of the church, and for avoiding delays and frivolous exceptions against such as otherwise should inform, denounce, accuse, or detect them; and because none are in this manner to be proceeded against, but whom their own speeches or acts, the public fame, and some of credit, as their ordinary or such like, shall denounce, and signify to be such as are to be reformed in this behalf. 7. That the form of such proceedings by articles ex officio mero is usual; it may appear by all records in ecclesiastical courts, from the beginning; in all ecclesiastical commissions, namely, by the particular commission and proceedings against the bishops of London and Winton, in king Edward’s time, and from the beginning of her majesty’s reign, in the ecclesiastical commission, till this hour; and therefore warranted by statute. 8, If it be said that it be against law, reason, and charity, for a man to accuse himself, quia nemo ienetur seipsum prodere aut propriam turpitudmem revelare, I answer, that by all charity and reason, Proditus per denundationem alterius sive per famam, tenetur seipsum ostendere, ad evitandum scandalum, et seipsum pur gandum. Prælatus potest inquirere sine prævia fama, ergo a fortiori delegati per principem possunt; ad hæc in istis articulis turpitudo non inquiritur aut flagitium, sed excessus et errata clericorum circa publicam functionem ministerii, de quibus ordinario rationem reddere coguntur. (The purport of our prelate’s meaning seems to be, that although no man is obliged to inform against himself, yet, if informed against by others, he is bound to come forwards, in order to avoid scandal, and justify himself; that a bishop may institute an inquiry upon a previous fame, much more delegates appointed by the sovereign; and besides, that in these articles no inquiry is made as to tur-' pitude or criminality, but as to the irregularities and errors of the clergy, in matters relating to their ministerial functions, an account of which they are bound to render to their ordinary) 9. Touching the substance of the articles, first, is deduced there being deacons and ministers in the church, with the lawfulness of that manner of ordering; secondly, the establishing the Book of Common Prayer by statute, and the charge given to bishops and ordinaries for seeing the execution of the said statute; thirdly, the goodness of the book, by the same words by which the statute of Elizabeth calls and terms it. Fourthly, several branches of breaches of the book being de propriis factis. Fifthly, is deduced detections against them, and such monitions as have been given them to testify their conformity hereafter, and whether they wilfully still continue such breaches of law in their ministration. Sixthly, Their assembling of conventicles for the maintenance of their factious dealings. Jo. For the second, fourth, and sixth points, no man will think it unmeet they should be examined, if they would have them touched for any breach of the book. 11. The article for examination, whether they be deacon or minister, -ordered according to the law of the land> is most necessary; first, for the grounds of the proceeding, lest the breach of the book be objected to them who are not bound to observe it; secondly, to meet with such schismatics, whereof there is sufficient experience, which either thrust themselves into the ministry without any lawful calling at all, or else to take orders at Antwerp, or elsewhere beyond the seas. 12. The article for their opinion of the lawfulness of their admission into the ministry is to meet with such hypocrites as, to be enabled for a living, will be content to be ordained at a bishop’s hands, and yet, for. the satisfaction of their factious humour, will afterwards have a calling of Certain brethren ministers, with laying on of hands, in a private house, or in a conventicle, to the manifest slander of the Church of England, and the nourishing of a flat schism; secondly, for the detection of such as not by private, but by public speeches, and written pamphlets spread abroad, do deprave the whole order ecclesiastical of this church, and the lawfulness of calling therein; advouching no calling lawful but where their fancied monstrous signorie, or the assent of the people, do admit into the ministry. 13. The sequel that wo^ild follow of these articles being convinced or proved, is not -so much as deprivation from ecclesiastical livings, if there be no obstinate persisting, or iterating the same offence; a matter far different from the bloody inquisition in time of popery, or of the six articles, where death was the sequel against the criminal. 14. It is to be considered, what encouragement and probable appearance it would breed to the dangerous papistical sacraments, if place be given by the chief magistrates ecclesiastical to persons that tend of singularity, to the disturbance of the good peace of the church, and to the discredit of that, for disallowing whereof the obstinate papist is worthily punished. 15, The number of these singular persons, in comparison of the quiet and conformable, are few, and their qualities are also, for excellence of gifts in learning, discretion, and considerate zeal, far inferior to those other that yield their conformity; and for demonstration and proof, both of the numbers, and also of the difference of good parts and learning in the province of Canterbury, there are but — hundred that refuse, and — thousands that had yielded their conformities. These sentiments of the archbishop, although the detail of them may seem prolix, will serve to shew the nature of that unhappy dispute between the church and the puritans which, by the perseverance of the latter, ended in the fatal overthrow both of church and state in the reign of Charles I. They also place the character of Whitgift in its true light, and demonstrate, that he was at least conscientious in his endeavours to preserve the unity of the church, a,nd was always prepared with arguments to defend his conduct, which could not appear insufficient in the then state of the public mind, when toleration was not known to either party. That his rigorous protection of the church from the endeavours of the puritans to new mould it, should be censured by them and their descendants, their historians and biographers, may appear natural, but it can hardly be called consistent, when we consider that the immediate successors of Whitgift, who censured him as a persecutor, adopted every thing, that was contrary to freedom and toleration in his system, established a high commission-court by a new name, and ejected from their livings the whole body of the English clergy who would not conform to their ideas of church-government: and even tyrannized over such men as bishop Hall and others who were doctrinal puritans, and obnoxious only as loving the church that has arisen out of the asbes of the martyrs.

In 1585, we find Whitgift, by a special order from the queen, employed in drawing up rules for regulating the press, which were confirmed and published by authority of the Star-chamber in June. As he had been much impeded in his measures for uniformity by some of the privycouncil, he attached himself in a close friendship with sir Christopher Hatton, then vice-chamberlain to the queen, to whom he complained of the treatment he had met uith from some of the court. The earl of Leicester, in particular, not content with having made Cartvvright master of his hospital, newly built at Warwick, attempted, by a most artful address, to procure a license for him to preach without the subscription; but the archbishop peremptorily refused to comply. About the beginning of next year, the archbishop was sworn into the privy-council, and the next month framed the statutes of cathedral-churches, so as to make them comport with the reformation. In 1587, when the place of lord-chancellor became vacant by the death of sir Thomas Bromley, the queen made the archbishop an offer of it, which he declined, but recommended sir Christopher Hatton, who was accordingly appointed.